Breakdown

Breakdown By Darryl Brooks Annie Tucker was cruising along US-1 in the no-man’s land between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, Florida. Her ML430 cruised effortlessly at 75 MPH with the sunroof open and Tom Petty blasting on the stereo. She loved her new Mercedes and all its toys. She watched the GPS navigation display on the dashboard – the arrow pointing south, showing she was about ten miles from St. Augustine, the country’s oldest city. It was past midnight. She hoped to make Daytona Beach and find a hotel with a vacancy. As Tom Petty stopped singing about an American Girl and Bruce Springsteen began belting out Thunder Road, the GPS blinked off. She just had time to wonder what was wrong when the lights flickered on and off several times, then stopped completely, along with Bruce. “Shit!” she screamed as she pulled off the road. She hit the emergency flashers. Nothing. “Shit!” she yelled again. She grabbed her cell phone and flipped open the cover. No Service. “Dammit!” She turned off the engine and got out, walking around to the shoulder and away from the car, hoping to get at least one bar, but there was nothing. The only thing she could do, she decided, was to make it to the next town without lights and call for service in the morning. She got back in the car and turned the key. Nothing happened. “Oh, God, no,” she whispered, trying again. Nothing. It was completely dead. She was trying the cell phone again when she saw a headlight in her mirror. She hopped out and stood behind her car waving her arms in the moonlight. When it got a little closer, she heard the roar of the engine just as she realized it was only a single headlight. She didn’t have to think long about an encounter with some biker out on a dark highway. She got back in and hit the door lock button – nothing happened. She reached around and hit the manual lock just as the motorcycle pulled up behind her. She watched in the mirror as a man got off the bike. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, just a bandana wrapped around his bald head. He looked as big as a mountain as he approached her from the driver’s side. “Hey, lady, got a problem?” “No. I’m fine. Thanks” He pulled off dark glasses and looked at her with smiling, yet cold, eyes. He said, “I thought I saw you waving.” “No, just stretching my legs for a minute. I’m fine. Thanks, anyway.” She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. The man was huge, his muscular torso straining at the black t-shirt under the leather vest. The vest covered with patches and pins, a silver cross dangling from his right ear. “Lady, if you’re broke down, I’d be happy to give you a ride,” he said, “no helmet law in Florida. Just hop on back and I’ll take care of you. There’s a little roadhouse up the highway a bit. You make a call; I’ll buy you a beer. The name’s Jax.” “No, really, I’m fine. Just resting a minute and I’ll be on my way.” She held up her cell phone. “I just stopped to call my boyfriend. He lives close by.” “Yeah, whatever. Not many people take this road at night with the Interstate so close, but if you say you’re okay, I’ll be scootin’ down the road. You change your mind, I’ll be at the bar, about two miles down on the left.” With that, he turned and walked back toward his motorcycle. Annie gave a yelp as he slapped the side of her car. When he reached his bike, he hiked one leg over and put his sunglasses back on. With a push of the starter, the bike roared to life. As he passed, he tossed a casual wave with this left hand and she could see a patch on the back of this vest – Southern Cruisers. A few seconds later, his taillight disappeared over the rise. Annie realized she had been holding her breath as she let out a sigh. This was followed by fear as she remembered she was still in the same predicament. Getting out of the car, she tried the phone again – nothing. She thought briefly about walking somewhere. But where? There wasn’t likely to be cell service this far from the interstate until she got close to St. Augustine. She hadn’t passed anything since a crossroads about five miles back. Walking to the bar didn’t seem any smarter than getting on that bike. No choice but to wait for another car. The truckers all stuck to I75 off somewhere to the west. Why the hell did she decide to take ‘the scenic route?’ About fifteen minutes later, she saw the lights of a car coming from behind her. She waited until it got closer. It was definitely a car with one person in it, so she stepped out into the road again and waved. As the car came to a stop behind her, she saw it was a man in an old Volvo. “Miss, are you having a problem?” the man asked as he came around the front of his car. “Yes, please. My car died and my cell phone won’t work. I need to call for service or get a tow truck.” The man pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and glanced at it briefly. “I’m not getting service either. I can give you a lift into St. Augustine, if that will help. My name’s Chuck.” he said, smiling pleasantly. She thought for only a second, what choice did she have? The man was slim with a neat haircut, wearing a sports-coat over a dress shirt and jeans. He stood back a respectful distance, letting her decide. “Thank you very much. Let me grab my purse and lock up.” She walked around to the passenger side and opened the door. She got her purse off of the floorboard. She was just about to reach for the key when she heard the man’s cell phone ring. She started to turn back toward him and say, “Hey, I thought you said –“ She didn’t get any further as the man clubbed her under the chin with his fist. She dropped her purse as her head banged back into the door’s window. “No. Please. I just –“ “Shut-up lady.” The man’s hand clamped over her mouth and forced her back against the door. “Not a word.” He flipped open his phone, “Yeah?” Yeah, I’m on the way, but I got sidetracked.” He leered at her. “I stopped for a little package I think you’ll like. We’re going to have us some fun tonight. I’ll be there in about a half hour.” He flipped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket. Then he brought his hand up around her throat while he let go of her mouth with the other one. “We can do this easy or hard. We walk back and get in my car. I’ll wrap a little duct tape around your wrists and you can ride in the front. Or I can truss you up like a turkey and stuff you in the trunk. Your call.” “Wh-where are you taking me?” “We’re going to visit some friends of mine. They’re going to love you. We’ll all have a real good time.” “I’ll go quiet. Please don’t put me in the trunk. Let me get my purse.” “That’s a good girl. Nice and easy, grab it and let’s go.” She bent down to get her purse. As she started to stand up, she straightened her knees with all the force she could and sprang at the man. He was caught off guard, and stumbled back a step. It was enough for her to swing the purse with all her might and slam it into the side of his head. Before he could react, she was around the car door, running up the side of the road. She hadn’t gone far when she felt him catch up with her. He grabbed the back of her neck and shoved forward, causing her to lose her balance and fall. Her knees and palms were scraped and bloody as she tried to rise. Before she could get up, he had her by the back of the head and slammed her forehead down. “Well, missy, I guess you’ll be riding in the trunk after all.” He slammed her head into the ground again. She couldn’t hear anything as first a buzz, then a roar sounded in her head. She felt her body rise as he lifted her to her feet and started walking her back with a grip on her neck and arm. “Don’t say anything or I’ll snap your neck.” She realized then that she could hear and the roaring was real. She tried to turn her head, but he had her in a vise-like grip and propelled her forward as the roar got louder. As they neared his car, a dozen motorcycles came thundering up and stopped, surrounding them and both cars. She thought her nightmare would never end as the engines shut down and they got off their Harleys. Were these bikers Chuck’s ‘friends’, or was she about going from bad to worse? The huge, bald brute that had stopped before got off his bike and walked over. “Lady, you don’t look so good. Is this the boyfriend you was talking about?” “That’s right, I’m her boyfriend,” said Chuck, “We’re just having a little spat. No problem. Everything’s okay. I’m going to take her back home so we can kiss and make up. Isn’t that right, sweetie?” The man nodded her head with the grip on her neck. One of the other bikers, a small grizzly haired man with more grey than black in his mane, walked over with her purse. “Found this over yonder,” he said, handing it to the one called Jax. Opening it up, Jax pulled out her wallet and looked at her license. “What’s your girlfriends name, Sport?” he asked and grinned at Chuck, who was holding Annie by the neck and arm. “Look guys, you don’t understand. This isn’t any of your business. If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to take my girlfriend home.” the man said and started toward his car again. Jax glanced right and four bikers spread out between the Volvo and Chuck. He stopped and turned back. “No. You don’t understand,” said Jax, “we ride this highway. We’re sorta like the sheriffs around here, and this looks like a damsel in distress. Don’t it boys?” Some of the bikers laughed – some just stared, a cold smile on their faces. Annie began crying. She hadn’t cried yet, but now she was being fought over by a maniac and a gang of bikers. Jax looked to his left, “Doc, take the lady back to her car and see what you can do with her. “No, please. Can’t you all just leave me alone?” The one called Doc, grabbed a bag off his bike and started toward Annie and her captor. Doc was short with a huge gut. His hair was long, but bald on top. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and looked like a demented Ben Franklin. As he approached the pair, Chuck said, “Now, look-“ That was all he got out. Doc shifted his bag over his left shoulder and shot out with a straight right arm, catching the man in the neck. She felt both hands leave her body as the man stumbled backwards, a gurgling sound coming from him. In almost the same motion, Doc’s right arm cradled her shoulders and began gently moving her toward her car. As they got to her passenger side, he set her in the seat and took the bag off his shoulder. “Settle down, girlie. I really am a doctor. Was anyway. Forty-Third Medical Group. Got my training a long time ago in a little paradise in Southeast Asia. All those boys are Vets and they’ll fix your ‘boyfriend.’” He began taking gauze and antiseptic out of his bag and handed her a tissue, “Clean up your face and quit blubbering. We ain’t gonna hurt you.” “He’s not my boyfriend, he- “She jerked as she heard a howl like a wounded animal. “Easy,” said Doc, as he began cleaning dirt and blood from her scraped knees. “That’s just the boys educatin’ that feller. We knew he weren’t your boyfriend. Jax got to the tavern, said there was a lady broke down back a piece and got a few of us together to come see if we could help.” She heard her driver’s door open and someone reached in and popped the hood. She looked around and saw two more of the bikers under her hood with flashlights. The noises from the Volvo had stopped. Doc finished cleaning and bandaging her wounds and helped her back up. He held her elbow gently and walked with her back toward the Volvo. Jax was standing in front of it looking at the car. “That’s good enough, boys. The State Patrol will come along after while and take care of our friend here.” She looked at the car and saw Chuck stretched out on top, his clothes stripped to his underwear and his body duct-taped to the hood. His head thrashed from side to side trying to scream through the tape across his mouth. Just then, she heard her engine turn over and start. The two bikers who were looking under the hood walked back toward Annie. “Had a bare wire in your battery cable. Shorted out the ‘lectric system. We wrapped a little duct-tape around that, too. Should get you by ‘til you can get service.” The one talking looked at the Volvo and grinned. “Duct-tape, good for just ‘bout anything.” This time, she joined the laughter, the adrenaline draining from her body. “Well,” said Jax, handing her purse back, “we got your car started and Doc’s patched you up. I guess you’re good to go. We need to get outta here before the law turns up. They might have an objection to the way we handled that clown back there.” She took a card out of her purse and handed it to Jax. “If the police ask anything about what happened here, you have them call me. But before I go, I owe you an apology. How about we run down to that roadhouse you mentioned and I’ll by a couple of rounds of beers?” “You hear that boys? Saddle up, ladies buying!” With even more noise than before, the bikers all jumped on their bikes, revved the throttles, and roared south back down the highway. Annie got in and followed at a slower pace, vowing never to travel off the Interstate again.

The Box in the Attic

Many people start writing at a young age, maybe writing stories in high school or working for the school paper. Or they go to college pursuing a journalism degree, maybe take some creative writing classes. I wasn’t one of those people.One day, I thought, I have something to say; I think I’ll try to write. I have read thousands of other peoples stories, and I’ve done many interesting things. So one day I opened the dusty attic of my mind and all these thoughts and stories come pouring out.At first, they came out in sort of a jumble. I didn’t know quite how to put anything in words the correct way, but there was plenty of help for me on that. The main thing is I start capturing it all as it streamed out through the open attic door.After a while, the stream slowed to a trickle and I climbed up into the attic and started poking around. I had to explore the attic a bit and look for the stories. There were still a lot of them up there, but they were just not quite as easy to find. Some of them were even hidden under years of dust and neglect. I pulled aside an old musty tarp and was confronted with something I’d never seen or thought of before, or something I had completely forgot about. So I wrote about that.Any time I am stuck for something to write, I climb back up here and look around again, going deeper and deeper into the attic each time. But there is one corner of the attic I didn’t go into. Over in that dark, dusty corner, hidden from view is a tiny little box. The box is called, Maybe I’ll Write a Book.I was up here one day, and a someone tapped me on the shoulder and pointed over into that corner and said, “Hey, what is that? Maybe you should look over there.” I looked the other way and pretended I didn’t hear what they said. I acted as if I was looking someplace else, cleaning and polishing another story over in the opposite direction. But before I turned away, I caught a glimpse of the box.The problem is that now I have seen it, and it seems to be getting a tiny bit bigger each time I come up here. The corner it is in is not quite as dark as it used to be. Many of the cobwebs that used to shroud the box aren’t there any more.I’m not any where near ready to open that box, or even venture into that corner of the attic yet. But I know it’s there now, so I won’t be able to ignore it forever. Eventually, it will get so big that I will have to do something about it. At least I know I won’t have to pick it up by myself, and I can get some help carrying it down into the light.

38 Seconds

I had a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but a plan nonetheless. I was going to break 2:50 in the New Orleans Marathon and qualify for Boston. If I made that, I was going to hire a coach to train me for Boston with hopes of breaking 2:22 and making an Olympic Trials qualifying time. Of course, dropping 30 minutes in 2 months was a fairly absurd idea, but we runners are nothing if not dreamers. In Atlanta, I spent a lot of time at the old Phidippides at Northlake mall and had discussed coaching occasionally with Benji Durden (1980 Olympic Marathon Team), and Lee Fidler. Both runners had admonished me on several occasions about incorporating more rest into my training. I didn’t know at the time that both runners would be at New Orleans; Lee to run the Marathon and Benji to run the 10K. I had a previous best of 3:10, so I only needed to take 20 minutes off. I had been training for about 8 weeks, and my average weekly mileage was 50 – 60 miles. I had put in four or five 20 milers, so I felt I was prepared for this effort, anyway The race ran across the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, the longest bridge in the world, so it should be flat and fast. I needed to break 6:30 per mile for 26.2 – I don’t know why I thought I could, but back in the day, I ran most races on guts and dreams, rather than any solid scientific data or recent accomplishment. As I stood at the start with 2300 other runners, I wished the wind would quit. The temperature was close to freezing and the wind was blowing at around 20 miles per hour. It would be a tail wind for 24 miles of the race, but I was cold and miserable, and just wanted to get on with it. At the gun I took off, running at what I thought was a good pace. I’m sure it was pushed along by the wind and my desire to get warm. About 3 miles into the race, I heard a familiar voice and turned to see Benji running up from behind – obviously a slow day for him. “Hello, how’s it going?” I huffed out as he came along beside me. “Not bad,” he replied, going on to explain he was there to run the 10K. I don’ recall if the 10K was later and this was a warm-up, or it was the day before and this was just a training run. “How about you, what are you trying for today?” he asked. I told him I wanted to qualify for Boston, and was about to spring my plan to ask him about coaching, when I saw the incredulous expression on his face. “What’s wrong,” I asked. “You know you need a 2:50 for Boston, right?” “Yeah,” I said. “You know that’s just under a 6:30 pace, right?” “Where is he going with this?,” I thought, as I puffed out another, “Yup.” “Any idea how fast you are going?” Assuming he wasn’t about to tell me I was dead on a perfect pace, I said, “No.” “Well, the tail wind makes it tougher to estimate, but I’d guess you’re doing about a 5:45 mile right about now. You better slow down. “See you,” he said as he trotted off into the distance. Oh %#*&, I thought as I tried to assess my pace. I kept trying to slow down, but the weather, other runners, and the tail wind kept pushing me along. At five miles, I was still under thirty minutes – not far off my 10K pace. “I’m going to die,” I thought as I continued to try and get my legs to obey my brain. The middle miles turned into the same mind-numbing mush that all marathons are reduced to. I tried to do the math in my head as I hit the 10 and 15 mile split, but it was too much. I remember thinking that whoever told me the far shore never gets any closer was right, the jerk, and oh God, would I ever get off this bridge? The brain and most other functions shut down one by one as my body was depleted of every nutrient it could suck out of each and every cell. I hurt and wanted to stop, but every time I started walking it hurt that much more to start running, but I can’t just keep on running, so I’ll walk one more time, please get me off this bridge. As I approached the next split, I finally came to a complete stop and leaned against the rail. I kept thinking I didn’t know if I had another 6 miles in me, and tried to figure out my pace, but my brain would no longer do anything more complicated than right foot, left foot. Completely broken, I took off in another slow-footed shuffle toward the…what? What does that sign say? 25 miles? That can’t be right? When did I pass the 20 mile split? What time is it? 2:43 something. Can I make it? Once again, I tried to do the math in my head. I don’t know, but just maybe, I can make it. I got the infamous second-wind, and picked up the pace a bit. If I could think clearly, I would have given up, but delirium has its advantages. Within the space of just a few yards, the far shore suddenly loomed close and we ran off the bridge. I kept looking at the road, looking at my watch, looking at the road – maybe. I finally got in site of the finish line and started focusing on the clock. It said 2: something, what is it? As I got closer I could see it said 2:50 and some seconds, but where is the clock? Where is the finish line? In my mind I had convinced myself that I crossed the finish line before I saw the clock and maybe had hit my goal. I could hardly walk, but I stumbled around for a bit trying to find someone who could give me my finish time. The pain was setting in with a vengeance, and I was getting chilled as the woman who would become my wife helped me out of the way and into a warm car where she gave my legs a much needed massage. Of course, I hadn’t quite made my goal and my finish time was 2:50:38. 224 men met that goal that day – I was number 227. Even though I finished in the top 10%, the if-onlys started beating on me and I was in a funk for days. The reality is that I hadn’t trained for that kind of speed, I hadn’t paced myself properly, and I hadn’t kept the mental game in play long enough to keep myself in the race. 38 seconds.

Pigwell

In Pigwell, time is not measured by days or weeks but by the number of eighteen wheelers that drive past my house. That’s how I know when the weekends come and go. There isn’t as much trucking between Dilley and Carrizo Springs on the weekend, but at night, you can hear them run up and down I-35 to Laredo and back. My Ma and me still have to get up before dawn every day and tend to the hogs and goats and chickens we keep, weekends or not.

For a while, I could tell it was the weekend ‘cause Ma’s new boyfriend was laying around the house, or sitting under the mesquite tree drinking beer with his buddies from town. He worked at the new Wal-Mart up to San Antonio and told Ma that ‘he work hard all week and ain’t gonna get up on no weekend to tend to no pigs.’

‘Course the town isn’t really called Pigwell, but Big Wells don’t seem right since the oil rigs all dried up around here back in ’84 – the year I was born. Since about all any body does around here is raise chickens, goats, and hogs, folks started calling it Pigwell. Ma didn’t want to raise no goats, said they ain’t fit for food and they tear up everything. But she said they eat any old thing and there ain’t much upkeep, so she finally got a pair. The Kelsy’s down the road raise goats and they sell them down in Mexico. The Rio Grand’s closer than San Antonio and Ron Kelsy says they love their cabrito down there. We got about a dozen now and Ma say’s she might run down to Piedras Negras with Mr. Kelsy soon and sell them all.

I was only four when my Daddy run off, so I don’t remember him so good. Ma tells me he said the ‘awl bidness’ was the only thing he knew and he was going over to ‘Loosyana’ and try some wildcatting. Told her he’d be back for us when he made his stake. Well, that’s coming on twelve years now, so I guess he ain’t made it yet.

I was eight when they came out and P&A’d the well – that’s plug and abandon. Ma sold all the iron rigging and casing out of the well for scrap. Used the money to buy a pair of hogs and a truckload of chickens to get her started. Then they come in and poured the hole full of concrete and that’s all she wrote. They say back in the old days, they used to drive a tree trunk in the hole to plug it, but them folks at the EPA raised a stink over that. They said the oil was seeping into the ground water and polluting the Nueces. Hell, everybody in Dimmit County knows you don’t drink out the Nueces. We still fish out of her, but you got to cook them bass real good.

Me and Ma’s been saving hard so I can go up to San Antonio College when I get out of high school. I study right smart when my chores are done so I can keep my grades up. Ma says if I keep it up we can get me a scholarship to help out with the tuition. Her boyfriend, Luke wasn’t helping much with that. He brought his paycheck home every other Friday, but I think he drank and gambled it all up and then some. They always squabbled about money. That’s why I like it out here with the pigs afore sun-up. Even with their squealing and grunting, it’s peaceful here in the pens, watching the eighteen wheelers rolling up Hwy 85.

Ma’s always talked about me going off and getting me an engineering degree or something in computers. I like studying computers, but there ain’t none in Big Wells and there’s only three up at Carrizo Springs High School where I go. There are just 700 people in Pigwell, so we have to ride the bus 20 miles to go to school. I try to get some of my studying done on the bus so I don’t have to stay up so late. Lately, Betsy’s been sitting next to me on the ride, so it’s hard to get any studying done. Ma tried to get Luke to drop me off at school on his way to town, but he said, ‘I ain’t gonna get up a hour early when they’s a damn bus stops right by the mailbox. That’s what I pay my taxes for.’ I didn’t want to ride with him anyway and since Betsy been sitting next to me, I don’t mind the bus a bit.

Problem with them computers now is they got that Y2K thing that’s coming. They say that’s going to shut ‘em all down just like the oil rigs shut down in the eighties. Then they’s going to be a whole bunch of new folks looking for work, so I don’t know about that. Maybe I better stick with the engineering. There’s always folks looking to get something built and somebody’s got to figure out a way to build them.

I wouldn’t mind just getting up every morning and tending to the hogs and chickens, but Ma say’s that ain’t no life for me. For a while, Luke was trying to talk her into selling the farm and moving to San Antonio. I kept asking her what about when Daddy comes back from Loosyana, but she just shushes me up. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing the world. One day, I might even go to Houston or Dallas if I get that engineering degree.

Sometimes I talk to Betsy on the bus about what we’re going to do when we get out of school. She works in the beauty parlor sweeping up after school and says she wants to be a beautician. She sure is pretty enough. Smells good too, like fresh soap. I’m kinda embarrassed about how I smell, but she say’s it’s fine. I try to wash up after my chores, but some mornings there ain’t time before the bus comes. Ma used to tell me it was a waste of time; I didn’t need to be all clean to go to school. One day, she seen me getting off the bus with Betsy and walking down the highway a piece towards her house. Since then, she hasn’t said nothing about me wanting to clean up and sometime looks at me kinda funny. Like she’s smiling and crying all at the same time.

Then one day, I got off the bus with Betsy and we was kinda holding hands. I acted like I was just helping her down off the steps, but once she was down, I didn’t let go and she didn’t pull away. It was kinda nice. I looked to see if Ma was watching, but she was over in the side yard feeding the chickens. She was holding herself sort of funny, so told Betsy I had to go and started up through the yard. That’s when I saw Luke’s car under the mesquite tree. He usually didn’t get home til way after dark when he’d got his fill over at Big John’s.

I went to Ma, and she was throwing the feed with one hand and holding her side with the other. I asked her what was wrong, and she said it weren’t nothing, but I could tell she’d been crying. I asked her what was Luke doing home, and she said he got laid off and to ‘not say nothing about it to him, cause he’s right touchy on it.’ Then she winced and grabbed her side again. I took the feed bag from her and told her I’d finish the chores so she could go lay down. She didn’t go in the house though, just sat down in the porch swing and stared off down the road.

A few days later when I got off the bus, there was a sheriff’s car and a tow-truck was hooking up Luke’s car. Luke was out in the yard just raising cane at the sheriff and Ma was nowhere around. I figured I didn’t want to go up to the house just yet, so I walked Betsy all the way to her house. She lives next door, but her driveway’s about two miles from ours.

I got back about an hour later and I could hear Luke screaming all the way from the road. The sheriff and tow truck was gone. So was Luke’s car. I went up the porch steps and into the front room and there was Luke just yelling up a storm at my Ma. He had ahold of her arm and was just wailing on her, calling her no count and saying it’s her fault he couldn’t make the car payment.

I ran up behind and grabbed his arm and told him to let my Ma go or he’d be sorry. He just quit wailing on her long enough to backhand me. About knocked me clear across the parlor and I landed on my butt in the fireplace. He didn’t even slow up none, just kept beating my Ma and calling her all sorts of filthy names, ‘and your puling whelp there too.’ Ma was crying and trying to pull away and then started telling me to run, to get out of there.

I wasn’t just going to let my Ma get beat by him though. I stood up, brushed the soot off my britches, grabbed the poker out of the fireplace set, and went back at it. I come up behind him and whacked him on the back. He howled like a stuck pig and turned to backhand me again, but I was too quick and spun out of the way. Ma was yelling at me to stop, but he just punched her in the face with his right hand without even taking his red, drunken eyes off me. He tried to take another hard swing at me, but I ducked again. He swung so hard, he turned all the way around with his back to me and I brought that poker down on the back of his head, like I was splitting cord wood.

It sounded kinda like I was splitting wood too. The hook on the back of that poker stove his head with a thunk like driving a wedge into a stump. He turned half way around with his eyes all bugged out and trying to grab the back of his head. Then he just dropped to his knees and keeled over sideways.

My Ma let out a wail, like he was still hitting on her and sat on the floor. She just kept crying and rocking and saying, ‘my baby boy, what have you done’ over and over, hugging herself. I went to the kitchen, got a wet dishcloth, and tried to clean her up where he had been hitting her. She finally just stopped crying all at once and looked at me. She stared at me hard for a minute, and then just said, ‘We got to fix this. We got to clean this up.’

That was three months ago, and I’m still worried that someone will come looking for Luke. Ma says he don’t have no family and don’t have no job and won’t nobody ever look for him. If they do, she says we tell them that he just took off and ain’t been back. We cleaned the floor good enough you can’t hardly see nothing, but Ma got a braided rug and throwed over the spot. She told me that next weekend, she was going to run down to Mexico with Mr. Kelsy and sell them goats, ‘and that’ll be the last of Luke.’

Deadline

The deadline was fast approaching. January 15th was less than two days away and he still sat and stared at a blank monitor. He had been writing his monthly column for twenty-nine plus years and never missed a deadline, but 25 hours remained and he had nothing. Not a spark. It’s not as if there weren’t enough current affairs on which to write. President Ford, Saddam Hussein; hell Britney Spears fell asleep New Years Eve. There was a headline screaming for print.

He knew what the real problem was. It was that -other- deadline. January 15th he would also post his last article before retiring. He had begun his career in that post-Vietnam and Watergate heyday of the late 70’s. His first article was framed over his desk, “The Day The Music Died.” Elvis and Lynard Skynard. The Iranian Hostage crisis, Lebanon, Granada, Desert Storm – he’d covered them all. From Carter to Clinton and now Bush II, the sequel. He had written about wars, politics, entertainment – even those silly-ass stories on Y2K.

Now, what was he going to do? Finish that damned book? Twenty-seven thousand words and he still had no idea where the hell the plot was headed. Did the world need another book about some ex-military guy saving the world from terrorism? Maybe he should just scrap the thing and start over. Three-hundred something articles, he ought to have something he could turn into a book. Or two.

It’s not as if he didn’t know how to handle idle hours. One column a month for thirty years hadn’t exactly filled his calendar. Outside of speaking engagements and public appearances, he still had plenty of time left over to wreck two marriages, and write six articles from inside a rehab clinic in Arizona.

And for what? To end up sixty years old, in a three-room walkup above a dirty bookstore, with a view of the airport, staring at a blank screen. He watched as the little clock in the corner of the monitor clicked over to 12:00. Okay, one day left, and no ideas. He picked up the remote and began clicking through the stations again, searching for inspiration. Letterman, Leno, and Law & Order repeats. Christ, there ought to be a Law & Order channel. People never been to New York probably think people trip over dead bodies every time they go for a walk.

He turned off the tube and threw the remote in the corner. Leaning back, he propped his bare feet on the windowsill and stared up at his wall of shame. Pictures of him with celebrities and politicians he had interviewed. The one in front of a New York nightclub with his arms around Boy George and Joe Strummer. No memory of that night other than the picture, his column, and the rose tattooed on his ass.

Appropriately, that hung next to his last article before the little holiday in Phoenix. The result of an all-nighter on March 15, 1987, swilling Nyquil and Robitussin in that fleabag on River Street in Savannah, Georgia. Two nights before the second largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the damned country and you couldn’t buy a bottle on Sunday. He still read that column from time to time and wondered what he was trying to say, who Agnes was, and what happened to the goat.

Below that, the shot from the ’91 Grammys with Neil Young and Joe Cocker. What a pair to be stuck interviewing sober. The living, breathing semi-coherent personification of better to burn out than fade away, and a gravel-voiced bad impersonation of John Belushi. So, Joe, how long did it take you to write, ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On?’ Wait, let me jot this down. I don’t want to miss a freakin’ word.

He slammed his chair back down on the floor and swiveled around to face his old Royal typewriter. Wished he were still working on that thing. He could have the satisfaction of yanking the blank paper out and balling it up on the floor with the rest of the night’s abortions. He remembered the first article he tried to write on his old Apple IIe. Man, he fell in love with that spell-check and search and replace crap. Turned out a brilliant phosphorescent green narrative of Pulitzer class commentary, turned it off and went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous and just. Got up the next morning and learned all about saving your work on those five-inch floppy disks. Before you turn it off.

Well, those days were sure as hell gone, he thought as he swiveled back toward the twenty-one inch, 256 color, blank screen of nothing in front of him. With his tower system, laptop, PDA, and Blackberry, he could file his story at the touch of a button from anywhere. He could screw the pooch at a hundred terabytes a second, whatever the hell that meant. Old Billy Gates could explain it to him. Should have asked him in that interview in 2000. Guess he was too giddy at having survived the end of the world. Boy that was some smug son-of-a-bitch. ‘Course if he could turn his hobby into a hundred billion dollars, he’d be smug too. Despite that one season on the Denny’s Pro-Bowling tour, there wasn’t much chance of that.

He flipped idly through his old-fashioned Rolodex looking for a possible interview. Glancing at the clock again, he gave up on that idea. “Hey, Hillary, I know it’s one a.m., but could you spare a few quotes – it’s my last column.” He could wait until the morning, but there wasn’t any point in calling up his contacts if he didn’t know what he was going to ask. And this was the last one. He wanted to go out with a bang, not a thud. After that, there’d be nothing left.

He wondered how long before he would quit waking up on the 15th each month in a cold sweat. The same nightmare every time. He wakes up absolutely sure that he hasn’t filed a story and has nothing to say. Kind of like now, he thought, tapping on a few keys.. It would take some time to get used to not having any deadlines to face, though. The life of a retired writer. Hunter S Thompson didn’t raise the bar very freaking high on that one, did he?

Most people looked forward to sleeping late then hanging out all day in their underwear, but he already had that action nailed down pretty damned good. Maybe he could take up fishing. Sit on a cold, wet lake bank and try to fool a fish into biting his hook so he could drag it out of the water, asphyxiate it, and then cut it up for food. Nah, he’d just run down to Esca and order the catch of the day. As long as they let him run a tab. How fast would his celebrity status last?

But all this crap about retirement wasn’t getting it done. He still had one more column to write. 2500 words. He looked back at the screen and noticed he had typed one. Today. Today, what? Today was the first day of the rest of his life? Today was the day he wrote the greatest article of his career? Today was the last time he would do anything meaningful, spending the rest of his days as a pathetic has-been? End up on some damned Whatever Happened To show with Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman. I don’t freaking think so. He banged the backspace key five times.

He pushed back his chair a bit and stared at the screen again, the spark of an idea coming to him, just as it always did. He swiveled around and took a long look at his wall again; the stories he had written and the famous and infamous he had interviewed. Finally, settling once again on the picture of him with Neil Young, he swung back again and faced his nemesis – the word processor.

He placed his hands over the keyboard and paused there a moment. He knew from past experience, once his fingers touched the keys, they would not stop until the column was done and the story was told. He rarely wrote a second draft. When he typed his byline at the end of the piece, he pushed the send button and that was it. Slowly, he allowed his fingers to come to rest. asdf jkl;. Taking a deep breath, and glancing at the clock once again, he began to type:

I hope as you sit there reading this article, you will take a few moments to mourn the passing of one of the more prolific columnists of our generation. He died alone in his apartment at approximately 3 a.m. on the morning of January 15th, taking his own life after writing his final piece….

Rejection

Last summer, I was in the local sports arena watching a track and field competition. This is frequently like watching a three-ring circus, but I was focused on the 400-meter relay. I wasn’t so much watching the runners as the guys that were waiting to run. They stood there poised, their calves and shoulders tensed and ready. You could feel the desire and craving for release. And then, finally, the baton was slapped into their hand and they launched forward, no looking back.
To me, a rejection letter is like slapping that baton in my hand. Sure, I write every day, and I submit almost as often. But every submission is like a new leg in a relay race. I may give in to a moment’s disappointment when I open the SASE and see the nicely formatted form letter, but not for long. I have been poised and ready for weeks or months waiting for the baton to come back to me, and now it has. Immediately, I spring forward back in the race, “Where can I send this next? Who might want to publish this article?” And then no looking back; I’m tearing down the track resubmitting to a new market.
There are many great articles and books out there on this craft of writing. They all basically say the same thing, “Writers Write.” That is the anthem, the mantra, and the litany. Writers Write. But published writers submit. And resubmit. And submit again. As I said above, I try to submit daily. I don’t let that take the place of writing in my day’s schedule, but I don’t ignore its importance either. If I just wanted to write for myself, I’d set up a blog and post my stuff online. But that’s not my only goal. I also want to be published, to see my byline in print, to, gasp, make money at it. So I submit. I submit when I finish writing and polishing a piece. I resubmit articles that have been published. I resubmit articles that have been out there for too long without a reply. But I always, always, resubmit immediately on getting a rejection letter.
So here I stand, poised and ready at my corner of the track. I pull the familiar envelope out of the mailbox and see that it has my name and address printed as both the sender and recipient. I tense as I rip open the letter and zero in on the single phrase that sums it up. Regretfully. Not right for our… While we enjoyed… And then I spring forward, the next market in mind, printing a SASE, slapping on postage and getting back into the race.
Because sooner or later the runner will just sprint on by and finish the race. The envelope will have a publisher’s return address. Or there will be a personal email saying, “We would like to publish…” Then the crowd goes wild, and that’s partly while you do it. So you can take a quick victory lap and bask in the glory. But don’t take too long. The next race is warming up.

The Chain

The man on the dock was gagged and duct-taped to his chair. Several loops of chain wrapped around him and the chair, disappearing into a coil at his feet. A cinder block shackled to a length running out of the coil was sitting on the edge of the dock.
I sat on a bench at the edge of the dock, trying to keep warm and waiting for my quarry to wake up. It was the dead of winter and everything was quiet around the lake – all the summer homes locked up for the season. I had come looking for the man in the chair the day before, tracking him to this cabin on the shore of Carters Lake, about fifty miles north of Atlanta.
My mind drifted back to the day my client, Betty Austin, walked into my office.
“Are you Vince Diamond?” she said tentatively as she stuck her head in my office door. I don’t have a receptionist, or anywhere to put one if I did. I lease a one-room office in a small office park in Dunwoody, just north of the city.
I thought of some clever quip, since my name is on the door and I was the only one around, but the woman looked so distraught, I decided to play it straight. “Yes, I’m Vince Diamond, can I help you?”
“I hope so. I don’t know where else to go. I got your name from Mike Holst at the DeKalb County police department.”
Mike Holst worked missing persons for DCPD. He occasionally gave out my name to people when they wouldn’t or couldn’t help. The police won’t even file a report until someone was missing at least forty-eight hours. If they are an adult, and there was no sign of foul play, the police could do little. “Please, sit down and tell me what I can do. Let’s start with your name”
“I’m sorry. My name is Betty Austin, and my husband is missing. I have a picture,” she said and laid a photo of a good-looking man in his forties on my desk. “His name is Mark, Mark Austin.”
I took out my pad and started taking notes. “I assume the police couldn’t help?”
“No. They took a report and said they would file it and order a lookout. Detective Holst said that without some evidence of a crime, they couldn’t do any more. They say he may have just taken off on his own and he would come back when he was ready. But Mark wouldn’t do that. He’s never done that.”
“How long have you two been married?”
“Only two years. We met on vacation in the Caymans. We got married here a few weeks later. We’ve hardly been apart since then, except when Mark goes away on business.”
“And you know he’s not away on business now?”
“No. He would have told me. He doesn’t just leave without telling me.”
“Okay. Tell me what happened.”
“He called me from his office three days ago, Friday morning. We were talking about how we would spend the weekend. He interrupted to tell me he had another call coming in that he had to take. That was the last I heard from him.”
“Where does he work?”
“He works for himself as an independent investment counselor.”
“Could one of his clients called him away suddenly?”
“No. He still would have told me. He would have come home to pack. Besides, he hasn’t answered his cell phone. It’s been three days. I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay, I’ll take a look, but the police have a lot more manpower. If we can find a reason to, we’ll want to get them involved.”
I took some more information and filled out a standard contract. I arranged to meet her at her husband’s office in an hour. She left and I called Mike Holst.
“Mike, it’s Vince. I wanted to call and thank you for the referral.”
“And pump me for information.”
“And pump you for information. Did you guys look into this at all, or turn up anything interesting?”
“We checked out his office. Did a quick search of the airlines, hospitals, and other local police. We came up with nothing. His car’s gone. No reason to believe he didn’t just drive off somewhere. We’ve got a BOLO on the car, but there’s not much else we can do.”
The Be-On-the-Look-Out would most likely turn up something. If that went out to all metro police departments, it would cover eight counties and seven major interstates. Meanwhile, I drove over to Sandy Springs to meet Mrs. Austin.
She let me in with her key, disabled the alarm, and accompanied me inside. Mark Austin’s office was very similar to mine but with nicer furniture. It was one room with a waiting area in the corner. A massive oak desk took up the bulk of the floor space, which was almost clean except for a computer.
“See anything missing or out of place?” I asked her as I started the computer.
“No. Wait, yes, my picture. There was a picture of me in my wedding dress on his desk. It’s gone. He must have taken it don’t you think?”
I didn’t comment on that as I went to work searching his computer files. Fortunately, he didn’t have a password on his system. I guess he thought the lock on the door and security system were good enough. I was scrolling through the files created on February tenth, the day he disappeared.
“What time was your last phone call with him?”
“About two in the afternoon,” she answered, “Did you find something?”
“Not yet. How about have a seat in the waiting area and let me go through this. It won’t take long.” As she turned to head over to the corner, I put my flash drive into the USB port. I copied all the files from the last two days onto the card. I would have better luck working through them without the distraction. He saved the last file at one fifty-five. There was also a temporary file that he didn’t save stamped about fifteen minutes later. I took that, and then copied his calendar, email, and contact list for good measure.
I shut down the computer, and then spent a few minutes going through his desk drawers and file cabinets. Not much there – he obviously kept most records on his computer. I walked out with Mrs. Austin and waited while she locked up.
“Let me get started looking into this. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Either way, I’ll call you by the end of the week and give you a report.” I got a look that told me I would hear from her long before the end of the week. She went to her Volvo sedan, I got into my dusty Jeep Cherokee, and we parted ways.
I drove back to my office and booted up my computer. Inserting the memory key, I started looking at Mark Austin’s last files, beginning with the temporary file. Many computer programs create a temporary copy of a file while you are working on it. When you exit the program and save the file, the temporary file is deleted. If the computer crashes for some reason, the temp file is left behind so the file can be recovered. The fact that this file existed probably meant that Austin had turned his computer off in the middle of working on it, indicating he left in a hurry.
The file was a termination of services letter between Austin and someone named Al Bowden. There wasn’t a phone number, but there was an address off Fulton Industrial on the west side of town. I drove out there and found the address. It belonged to an old Tudor style house set in the trees, sheltered from the commercial area that surrounded it. I rang the bell and an attractive woman in her forties answered the door.
“May I help you?”
“Yes. My name is Vince Diamond and I’m looking for Al Bowden.”
“I’m Mrs. Bowden. May I ask what this is in reference to?”
“I’m a private investigator and I’m looking into the disappearance of Mark Austin. He apparently is a business associate of your husband. I’m just trying to get a line on what he was working on at the time of his disappearance.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t keep up much with my husband’s business.”
“Can you tell me what sort of business he is in?”
“Real estate development and speculation. Some stock trading. Mostly he’s in the business of making money.”
“Yeah, aren’t we all? Can you tell me where he is or how to contact him?”
“He’s out of town. He has a cell phone, but he hasn’t been answering it. I wouldn’t give you that number anyway unless he said it was okay.”
“Is that unusual? Him not answering his cell?”
“Not really. When he’s tied up in a deal, he’ll turn it off. He also visits some fairly remote areas, looking at land development. And we have a cabin up at Carters Lake that doesn’t get service, but he rarely goes up there without me. Not in the middle of winter.”
“Well, thanks for your time.” I handed her my card. “If you hear from him, could you ask him to give me a call?”
That might have been another dead end, but whether she was worried or not, there were still two men missing at the same time. I don’t believe in coincidence.
I called Mike Holst again from my cell on the way back to my office. He wasn’t in, so I left my number. I was just pulling into my parking lot when he returned my call.
“I hope you’re calling me to report a crime. Otherwise, I’m busy.”
“Mike, thanks for calling me back. I was wondering what the chances were you could get me Mark Austin’s phone records for the day he went missing.”
“You’re breaking up, Joe. I thought you just asked me a very stupid question about something you know I can’t get without a court order.”
Oh well, I took a shot. I went into my office and got back on the computer. Scrolling back through the files I downloaded from Austin’s computer, I opened a bills folder and found a cell phone bill he had downloaded last month. Using that, I went online and got into his account.
I scrolled through the list of recent calls. There were none for any time after four o’clock on the day he disappeared. The last inbound call was at 2:17 from a 706 area code. The same number was his last outbound call at 4:02. 706 was a large area code covering most of North Georgia outside the Atlanta area. It was beginning to look like I might be going to Carters Lake. I decided to stop for the day and head home.
The next morning, there were four messages on my office phone. Three were from Betty Austin wanting to know if I had made any progress. The fourth was from Alicia Bowden. She sounded worried and asked that I please call her as soon as I got in. I called Mrs. Austin first and let her know that I was working the case, but hadn’t developed any leads yet. I assured her again that I would call her as soon as I had some news.
Next, I called Mrs. Bowden. She was frantic, but I finally got her calmed down enough to tell me what was going on. Her husband had called her the night before to tell her that he was in Chicago on business and would be gone for a few days. She said he sounded very nervous, almost scared, but he had finally assured her that everything was okay. He said he loved her and would be home Friday.
“So why do you think that there’s a problem?”
“He just didn’t sound right, but he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I couldn’t sleep all night worrying about it. This morning, I thought to check caller ID on the phone in the den – he was calling from our cabin. He’s not in Chicago. I’ve been calling the cabin all morning but nobody answers. I’m afraid something is terribly wrong, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
“What’s the number for the cabin?”
She gave me the same number as on Mark Austin’s cell phone bill. I got directions for the cabin and headed into the North Georgia Mountains.
Carters Lake is a 4,000-acre lake just south of the Chattahoochee National Forest. I got to the area around noon and went into the nearby town of Ellijay to find some lunch and a room for the night. I spent the afternoon finding the cabin and scouting the area. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but I didn’t think it was going to be good.
Late in the afternoon, I drove back to town and had some dinner. I went back to my room to change and grab my duffle bag. My bag contains an assortment of items I have found useful over the years, including binoculars, night-vision goggles, some rope, a Mag-Lite, a K-Bar knife, and my Browning 9mm pistol.
It was dusk as I pulled into the drive of the cabin three down from Bowden’s. From my scouting that afternoon, I knew that almost all of the cabins were empty. I went behind the cabin and down to the lakeshore following it around to the Bowden’s cabin. Behind the next cabin, I had to use my flashlight to circumvent a small construction site. Someone was building a dry-dock for a large boat out of cinder blocks. There was a block and tackle, and a large coil of chain resting on the path around the lake.
It was full dark as I approached the back of the cabin from the lake. I stopped as I heard a loud splash in the lake. I put on my NVGs and waited for my eyes to adjust to the pale green landscape. As I topped the rise where the cabin was located, I saw motion to my left. I slipped behind a low hedge and waited. A large man wearing a sweat suit was raking the leaves on the dirt path that led around the cabin to under the back deck. A large wheelbarrow rested there with a rolled up rug lying in it. I had no idea why someone would be doing yard work at this time of night in the winter, so I crouched down and waited.
After the man finished raking back up to the house, he disappeared around the front. After a few minutes, lights came on in the cabin, so I took off the goggles. I went under the deck and climbed up a supporting post, hoisting myself onto the deck where I lay flat and looked in the sliding door.
The man I had seen was at the kitchen sink scrubbing his hands with a brush and a bottle of bleach. The sweat suit had spatters of what looked like blood all over the front. He was not the man in the photo that Betty Austin had given me, so I assumed it was Al Bowden.
The man went to the laundry closet and stripped off the sweat suit, putting it and a large quantity of bleach into the washing machine and starting it. He then went to the bar; poured himself a tumbler of Wild Turkey, sat down in a chair in his shorts, and began to drink. I watched and waited while he continued to drink until he finally passed out. Then I went to work.
****
The man in the chair slowly came awake. When he became aware of his situation, he began to hyperventilate with fear.
“You need to calm down – you’ll be able to breathe easier. You only have to be afraid if you don’t tell me what I need to know, or lie to me. In those cases, you have to fear sinking to the bottom of the deepest lake in Georgia and staying there until that chair rots off your bones.”
The man looked wildly around, trying to scream through the duct-tape. I walked over and slapped him hard. “When you calm down, I’ll remove the tape so we can talk.”
His breathing slowed down and got deeper as he tried to compose himself. When I thought he was ready, I ripped the tape from his face. “Who the hell…”
I slapped him again, and he shut up. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. If I can’t get the information I need from you, I don’t need you, and I kick that block into the water and walk away. There’s no one around to hear you scream, or to hear the splash when you hit the water.”
After that, he became more cooperative.
“What’s your name and what were you doing in that cabin?”
“That’s my cabin. My name is Al Bowden. I’m up here on vacation. My wife will be back any minute.”
I kicked the cinder block. It fell over and hung a few inches off the edge of the dock. Bowden’s eyes locked on it in fear.
“That’s one. The next lie and the block goes in the water. I’ll find out what I need with or without you. What were you doing at the cabin and where is Mark Austin.?”
I could see his mouth form the word ‘who’ as his eyes cut back to the block.
“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt him. We were just talking, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Talking about what?”
“I’m about to close on some land next to I-75. They’re cutting a new exit over by Dalton. The land’ll be worth ten times what it is now to developers. He’s doing the financial planning for the family that owns it and was going to tell them. He was dropping me as a client – said it was a conflict of interest. I couldn’t let that deal slip away.”
“So how did you get him up here?”
“Called him on his cell. He said he was just typing up a termination letter to me. Then he was going to see his client. I talked him into coming up here first. I told him we could work out a compromise where everybody makes out. It wasn’t far out of his way.”
“So you got him up here, then what?”
“I tried to talk some sense into him. This deal was worth a hundred thousand – profit. Told him I’d split it with him, but once the people that owned the land knew about it, they wouldn’t need us any more. We had to move before the DOT started talking with landowners.”
“But he wouldn’t listen.”
“No. Who the hell does he think he is? He just shook his head and turned away. I grabbed an old conch shell of the table and whacked him in the back of the head. I didn’t mean to hurt him – I just wanted him to stop and listen.”
“And where is he now?”
“In the crawlspace under a tarp. I threw the shell into the lake last night and cleaned up the cabin. I was trying to figure out what to do with the body last night. I don’t know what happened after that.
“After that, you passed out. I loaded you into the wheelbarrow that held your bloody rug and hauled you down here. I borrowed some equipment from next door and waited until morning.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“First, I want to thank you, Al, you’ve been very cooperative. I’m just going to leave you now with one thought.”
With that, I stood and walked over to the edge of the dock. Looking back at him, I kicked the cinder block into the water and walked away as it started dragging the chain into the lake.
His screams grew hysterical while I walked up the path from the dock where I parked my car. He leaned and knocked his chair over, hoping to stop the chain’s progress. The screams drowned out the sound of the chain hitting the water, but I turned and watched as the last of the links slid off the pier into the lake. He screamed on for a few more minutes before he realized the splashing had stopped and he was still on the dock. He finally looked around and saw that the chain attached to his chair hadn’t been attached to the cinder block.
I got in my car and drove back to his cabin. Someone would find him eventually. I had some very unsettling phone calls to make.

The Burial

The first time she entered this room seven years ago came flooding back. She had just turned sixteen. She had just met her uncle for the first time. She had just buried her mother and father.
“Welcome to your new home, child,” Uncle Paul said, “Put your bags down and come have a seat. If you are going to be living in my house, you need to understand the rules.”
No one had called her ‘child’ in a long time, and she had no intention of following any rules.
“Just tell me where my room is. I’m going out.”
She was shocked by the speed with which he crossed the room, and even more so when the back of his hand struck her face.
“You will do as your told, young lady. Despite the fact that you are my namesake, I never intended being a parent at this stage of my life. However, your parents named me as legal guardian and I intend to honor their wishes. As you will honor mine. Now sit. You may go to your room when you are dismissed.”
She walked toward the old Queen Anne sofa and sat, her mind in a haze. Paula’s uncle towered over her, the hand an unspoken threat.
“The first rule of course, is that you will always obey me without question. You will serve yourself breakfast before school, and return home promptly afterwards and attend to your studies…”
His voice was reduced to a buzz in Paula’s brain has the rules droned on. The only thought in her mind was how did she get into this situation and how was she going to get out of it. Paula hadn’t got along great with her parents, but it was normal stuff about homework and boys. They had never hit her.
The days and weeks passed in a blur, the only constant was her misery and isolation. She wasn’t allowed out with her friends, and she was afraid to have them visit her. One day, her uncle picked her up after school.
“We’re going to pay a visit to my lawyer. Your parents made me your guardian, but we need to tidy up some loose ends. Your parents left you quite a sum in trust and you need a will. I will become your heir and you will be mine.”
As she entered the law offices of Coben, Koontz, & King, her mind wrestled with this new information. She didn’t want him to be her heir, but she had no one else, and besides, she was afraid of arguing with him.
During the discussion with her uncle’s creepy lawyer, Mr. King, she discovered something about her parent’s death that had been kept from her before. She knew they died in a traffic accident on the coastal highway, but until now, she didn’t know that an unknown driver had run them off the road.
After that, she noticed a change in her uncle’s treatment toward her. He acted kinder, but behind the act was a predatory malevolence. He would cook her meals, and take her on long drives along the coast. At sunset, he would frequently take her on walks along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific.
It was on one of these walks that she learned the truth about her uncle. As he turned to point out a cypress tree clinging to the cliff’s face, he bumped into her forcing her toward the abyss. Only her teenage agility saved her as she twisted and clung to the cliff’s edge. Her uncle reached and pulled her up, apologizing, but he had a look that was more regret than distress.
From that moment forward, she exercised extreme caution at all times. She had discovered his true nature and intent, and suspected the truth about her parent’s ‘accident’. She kept her distance on their walks and was very careful about what and when she ate. On her eighteenth birthday, she packed her belongings and walked out of that house for what she thought was the last time.
Now, returning from another burial, as she looked around the musty living room, she thought, “I outlived you, you bastard.”

The Games II

“Anybody want to grab a bite to eat?” I asked.
“No, I think I’ll just go home.”
“No thanks, we have an early flight tomorrow.”
“We’re going to wander over by the stadium.”
And like that, it was over. I had worked over three-hundred hours in a little over two weeks, and some time between 6:30 and 7:30 on Sunday, August 4th, 1996; It. Was. Over.
I was too keyed up to drive home and I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with a free evening, so I just sat down in one of the folding chairs in the muster tent and thought about the preceding two weeks.
I had been working for two years to prepare for my role as a security supervisor in the 1996 Olympic Games, but they began in earnest two weeks earlier on Friday afternoon. That’s when I walked into this tent for the first time to meet the crew of a hundred-thirty or so volunteers. I parted the flaps of the massive white tent that afternoon and was greeted by a group of about two dozen. I then did the same thing I would find myself doing many times each day after that; tearing up the plan and winging it.
My post was called Olympic Center Perimeter, and was just that - The perimeter around, and the public areas within the Olympic Center. This included the three largest venues, The World Congress Center, The Georgia Dome, and the Omni Coliseum. It did not include Centennial Park or the Olympic Stadium where track and field would be held, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.
That was the source of part of my problem that evening. Many of the volunteers had decided to go the opening ceremonies. Fortunately, that’s where everyone else was also, so we decided to lock down most of the site until the next day, when the actual games began.
The next morning, I showed up at 6 a.m. to meet what I hoped was a better group of volunteers. When I arrived, I still didn’t have as much help as had been promised – a problem that would continue for another week. I had just enough people to adequately man all my posts, so I began doing just that. This is where I ran into my second major command problem – why was I in charge?
Myself and several dozen other supervisors scattered throughout the Olympic Games had come from a local group providing volunteer security for the Georgia Games. This was an annual event that was similar to, but much smaller in scale, to the Olympics. For this reason, ACOG (The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games) had selected us to help them prepare for, recruit and train, security for the Olympics. The rest of the many thousand volunteers came from all over the country and the globe. Many of these were current and retired law enforcement personnel of all kinds.
I worked directly under retired Secret Service and F.B.I. agents. Under me, I had a police chief from Basalt Colorado and a police officer from the Miami school system (whatever that meant.) I had corrections officers, regular police, army personnel, Interpol, and police from most European countries and Sydney, Australia. Why were they taking orders from a guy with absolutely no law enforcement experience?
For most of them, plain old chain of command worked. They did what I said because I had the stripes on my shoulders. For one crusty old Interpol officer from Sweden, that wasn’t good enough. He made it clear that he didn’t think it was right to have to answer to someone with no law enforcement experience. I couldn’t necessarily argue with his logic, but the fact remained that I was the boss and he wasn’t. One of my busiest gates was the approach to the venue from Centennial Park. Many tourists came through here and it was also the main approach to the press area in the World Congress Center. To make matters worse, it was just across the street from a sports bar that had an outside patio and attracted huge crowds throughout the games. This was the time when the Macarena was very popular and that bar played the damn song twice an hour.
I decided to kill two birds with one stone. On the second day of the games I took the Interpol officer to this gate and made it his. I told him to radio me if he needed anything, but otherwise it was his to command, and he wouldn’t see me unless there was a problem or he called me. I would swing by once or twice a shift with water and supplies, but otherwise I didn’t have to hear him gripe or the Macarena.
One of the primary focuses for security personnel was watching out for unusual or abandoned packages of any kind. It was on my first full day that I encountered the first package of many. We had heard of a bomb being found and safely detonated in the mail area inside the World Congress Center earlier in the day, so we were already on high alert.
I was working one of the gates, standing several yards in side the gate watching my crew work the crowd. Picture the security checkpoint at a major airport, except outside are just huge unorganized mobs coming in waves, and you’ll get the picture. We had people searching packages, watching the magnetometers, and wanding individuals. I would watch to make sure the people in charge of the gate were staffing and rotating personnel and handling the flow of people as much as possible.
After a bit of observing I turned to head to the next post, when I saw it. In the middle of a grassy square, isolated from most pedestrian traffic was a small box about the size of a shoebox, but more square. I radioed the command post and had the CO get a visual using the many security cameras in the area. He immediately sent Atlanta Police to help with crowd control and alerted the bomb squad. A couple of Atlanta PD officers and I blocked off the area forcing pedestrians to walk in a wide perimeter around it. We constantly had to fend off questions about why they couldn’t walk straight from point A to point B. A week later, we would stop getting this question.
The DOD bomb squad showed up and went through their routine, using robotics, and shielded armor. They couldn’t detect any sign of explosives, so finally one officer in the bomb suit approached the package and slowly opened it.
“Sushi!”
“What? What did he say? Sushi?”
One of the rules of the games was that no outside food was allowed. We were supposed to check at our gates, but it wasn’t a priority. The security they would pass through to actually get into a venue would check more thoroughly. A spectator had apparently been turned away at the Omni and instead of finding a trashcan, just dropped his box of sushi in the middle of the green.
We would spend quite a bit of time and effort over the next two weeks protecting people from all manner of suspicious packages. The seriousness of that wouldn’t hit home to most until the events of the following Friday night. They wouldn’t hit for me personally until a few nights later than that.
Meanwhile, my eighteen hour days pretty much blended into one another – the memory one long single event broken up by many, many highlights and low points. I met celebrities and politicians, performers and athletes. I also worked with some very memorable people. Some groups, like the Border Patrol, you could just give direction and get out of their way. Others, like the Army, required a bit more hands on direction. This could be both useful and entertaining.
Late July and August in Atlanta, Georgia is hot. Very hot and humid. There were days when we couldn’t get enough water and ice to keep my people safe and comfortable. One day, I had had enough of asking. I grabbed a young Army corporal and one of his men. I gave them a golf cart and an order.
“Find me some ice, lots of ice.”
“Where do you want me to get it from?”
“I don’t care. Improvise. But don’t come back without ice.”
About half an hour later, he calls me on the radio to meet him back at the Command Post. I beat him back there and watched him pull up, the golf cart loaded to capacity with dozens of bags of ice. I helped him load it into the cooler and water tanks.
“Do you want to know where we got it?”
“No. But I want you to know where you got it. We’ll need more.”
This was one of the better examples. The army does a great job, but the one thing they train the soldiers to do is take orders – and nothing else. If you tell one to breathe in, you’d better not forget to tell them to breathe out. One day, we had one of the many heat related incidents by a spectator out in the public areas. I had an ambulance coming in and I didn’t want any holdup at one of the vehicle security checkpoints – which was manned by army personnel.
“Hold all radio traffic for an announcement. C.P. to gate 86. I have an ambulance coming in hot and I don’t want it stopped. Clear the gate and let it pass.”
A few seconds of silence passes.
“Gate 86, did you copy?”
“This is gate 86.”
“Gate 86. Did you copy? Come back.”
“This is gate 86. You said to hold all radio traffic.”
“Gate 86. This is C.P. Did you copy my announcement about an ambulance?”
“This is gate 86. I don’t know about that, but an ambulance just came through hear and it didn’t stop. We tried waving it down, but it just kept going. Is that okay?”
Stories like these were abundant during the games and would be shared among volunteers, friends, and family. Others would be held a little closer, a little longer, and brought into the light a little later. As most everyone knows, a week into the Games, a bomb exploded in Centennial Park, killing one and injuring many. It also injured the spirit of the games and made the second week of the event a much more serious, somber affair for those of us in the trenches.
Early one evening, a few days before the end of the games, I was called by my Commanding Officer back to the C.P. Clearly, there was something going on that couldn’t be handled over the radio. He took me and a major with Atlanta Police into his office.
“We have specific, credible intel of a bomb threat outside the Omni coliseum. We have a description of the suspect and the package and a timeframe of between eight and nine.”
He gave us both the descriptions he had received. The police major left to deploy his men. The C.O. told me that the Colonel in charge of our army personnel would meet me outside to give me a squad to aid in the search. I grabbed a couple of radios and walked out to meet the colonel. He was just going through roll call and pointed to one row of men.
“You eight. Report to Mister Brooks and follow his orders. Fall out!”
With that, the eight men followed me to the Chevy Suburban I had commandeered. Amazingly, we all squeezed inside for the short drive to where the bomb was supposedly going to be placed. Once we were all inside and about to take off, the sergeant in charge of this unit asked, “Where are we going?”
I looked at him in disbelief. I am always reminded of this when I see the closing scene of the first half of Fellowship of the Ring, when Pippin, the youngest of the hobbits, having just convinced the council of Elders to allow him to go along on the quest, asked this same question.
“Didn’t the Colonel brief you on the mission?” I asked.
“Negative. He said follow you. We’re following you.” Great. This left me the job of briefing this SUV full of kids on what we were about to do.
“We have a description of a person and a package. Supposedly this person is going to leave the package and detonate it outside the Omni between now and twenty-one hundred. We are going to patrol that area. Hopefully, between security, army, and police personnel, we scare him off. Meanwhile, we look for the man and look for a package matching the description. We are not allowed at this point to shut down the venue or evacuate the area. You need to spread out, keep moving, keep looking, and report to your sergeant, who will report to me.”
They didn’t look too excited about the prospect, but they would follow orders. We got to the Omni and started deploying around the area. I went over the description one more time with police, and that is when I found out that the clothing description included a jersey with 32 on it. Shaq Oneal. I only saw about half a dozen of these in the first five minutes. I decided I would concentrate more on the package – a blue duffel bag, and let the police look for the suspect.
On my second round of the area, I came across my army guys – standing together in a bunch in the middle of the concourse.
“What part of spread out and keep moving did you not understand?” I asked. They looked at me with the same, who’s this guy look I had gotten used to. I tried a different tactic. “Okay, sergeant, get on the radio, call the C.P. and tell the colonel to send me a different squad. Explain your problem to him. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
I didn’t have to talk to them again, so I left them to the task and continued my patrol. You would think that looking for a specific bag in a limited area would be easy, but this was anything but. There were many tourists wandering about, most with bags. There were dozens of street vendors set up, all of whom had brought their wares in various bags and boxes. Many of these also had their tables draped with cloths that had to be looked under. In addition, there were dozens of stairwells, doorways, trash receptacles, and plantings.
As nine o’clock approached and I was checking a series of doors once again, the thought finally occurred to me. It hadn’t before this. I had concentrated on the task at hand and done the job. I had been doing this for almost two weeks, eighteen hours a day, and I just reacted to the situation. Now, as I tugged on a locked door, it came to me. What if it had been real? What if the device was there and had been detonated?
As nine o’clock came and went, and we were told to stand down, I pulled out my cell phone and called my wife. I told her that I missed her and just wanted to talk. I had done this often enough over the course of the event that she didn’t think anything about it. But the reality was that the adrenaline had left and I was drained. I just wanted to hear her voice. I had three hours left on my shift, but I was ready for that day – and for the event – to be over.
A few nights later it was, and I sat in my chair and remembered the jumble of memories from the previous two weeks. I would never have another experience similar to this, and I smiled to myself thinking, that’s okay – once is enough. As I left and walked toward my car to go home, I passed my C.O.
“If I work Salt Lake City, I may give you a call,” he said, shaking my hand.
“If you do, bring a checkbook. My volunteer days are over.”

Christmas in Prison

It’s Christmas in prison.
The food would be better on Christmas. You’d get ham and turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes with gravy, and pie. We never get pie.
The other thing about Christmas were visits. Your family could visit instead of just one person, and they could bring presents. Not wrapped, and it had to be on an approved list, but it was something.
My visit was Wednesday, just before Christmas. The guards escorted us into the visitor’s room. Normally, you didn’t go until your visitor arrived, but they had decorations and punch and cookies, and it was special.
Some families were already there. A new prisoner was with his wife and son. It was the first time he had seen his baby so this was a good thing. I grabbed a paper cup full of punch and waited, watching families brought in one by one from the guardroom. They were being searched and their gifts checked, so it was a slow process.
Then I saw Billy, the guard from my block, come in. He spotted me, then walked over. I could tell something was wrong.
“Your visit’s cancelled.”
“What do you mean cancelled?”
“Calm down. There was a problem with a gift they brought in.” He put one hand on my shoulder. “Your son brought a tie. You know that ain’t on the list. We tried explaining that, but he got upset, started crying. Then your wife got mad and began raising hell at the guards. We escorted them out. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! You made my kid cry? Johnnie! Maria!” I began yelling for my wife and son, struggling toward the guardroom. Billy held me back while two other guards came over.
“Johnnie! It’s okay son!” I yelled as the guards restrained me. I made one more lunge toward the door and a guard put a baton against my throat as the others pulled me toward the cellblocks. I jerked one arm free and punched the guard with the stick. That’s the last thing I remember as he raised it to strike me across the head. I woke up in solitaire, my head bandaged. Nothing to mark the passage of time, but the rotation of the lights and the meals. I think I’ve been here four days now, so today’s Christmas. I’ve never been in the hole on Christmas. I wondered if I would get ham and turkey.

Rage

I got the penny on our honeymoon. I’ve worn it around my neck ever since – never took it off for anything. That penny meant more to me than my wedding ring. Then some bastard went and stole it from me, so I killed him.
We went to New York City, and it was the first time either one of us had ever been much of anywhere. It was February, and we walked all over the city in the snow, amazed at the size of the place and all the buildings and people. We went to the top of the Empire State Building and waited in line to go out onto the observatory. That’s where I bought penny.
They had this machine, and you put in a penny, and it stamped a little picture of the Empire State Building into it and punched a little hole in it. We went to a sidewalk vendor in front of a bodega off Times Square and I bought a silver chain to hang it on. It’s hung around my neck ever since then until this scumbag over in C block yanked it off coming in off the yard.
I been in here for three years on a five year stretch for a smash and grab at a jewelry store down in Hapeville. I shoulda got off on account of the cops didn’t read me my rights before they popped me in the ribs with their wand, but the PD they gave me was a moron. Since I been in, I’ve been in a little drama so they keep taking away my good time. I’ll probably do the whole nickel. No big deal – my old lady’s waiting on me. She comes every month and for Christmas I might get a conjugal.
Anyway, there’s this big biker asshole named Lowside. We got into it a couple times out in the yard, but the bulls broke it up before it got serious. He’s had it in for me since I was the FNG. Seems I was sitting on his spot on the benches when he came out for his yard time, and I didn’t give him his propers, so he starts buggin’. Hell, I didn’t know it was his spot, but you can’t back down, not when you’re the new guy.
Mostly, I just make sure not to turn my back on him or get caught alone on the block. He runs with those Aryan punks, but they’re not making no thing over it, it’s a personal beef. I just don’t want to get shanked if I can help it. They threw me a blanket party that first week, but nothing much since then. That’s when they catch you off guard and throw a blanket over you before they beat the shit out of you, so you can’t
Anyway, I’m coming in from the yard while he’s going out, they got this new rotation now. We’re passing in the lockdown cage and just as they open the door and start herding us back to the blocks, Lowside reaches out and snatches the chain off my neck. His buddies close ranks and the bulls are pushing us in and before I can anything about it, I’m in lockdown and he’s in the yard.
It was two days later in chow before I saw him again and I charged in. His whole table stands up and fronts for him, and I couldn’t do nothing then neither. He just smiles that crooked tooth grin of his, his tattooed arms crossed over that potbelly he carries around. He says, “What Chain? I don’t know nothing about no chain, fish.”
“Fish, hell. I been in here longer than some of your bald buddies here, Lowside. You get my penny back, or I’ll do the rest of my nickel in D-Seg for doing you.”
“Well, now, you just bring it on, fish. I think you’re outnumbered.” He laughed. “You shoulda joined the brotherhood when you had a chance. Those old-school boys you hanging with just doing they time. Ain’t going to do nothing to help you.”
The guards were starting our way, so I turned and went back to my table. Lowside was right about one thing. The convicts I was hanging around were not going to do anything to bring attention to them. When I first got in, I had been approached by the Aryan Brotherhood and turned them down. I didn’t believe in what they stood for and didn’t’ want to do my stretch being a part of that. Instead I had chosen to hand out with some of the old-timers; convicts who had earned some respect and were for the most part left alone.
I was sitting with one of them now. Montana had landed a plane full of pot in a field surrounded by DEA agents back in 1975 when that sort of thing was taken a lot more seriously than it is now. The sentence then was fifteen to forty and Montana pulled the whole stretch. He had always worn this belt that said Montana across the back and that’s the only name he was known by.
“Why are you squaring off against those peckerheads?” asked Montana.
“Lowside stole something of mine and I want it back.”
Montana chuckled. “You’ve been in here, what… three years? And you still a fish. Don’t you know possessions are what got us all in here? And in here, they don’t mean nothing. You just got to do your time and get out.”
“You don’t understand, Montana. That penny he stole is all I got of my wife. I need it to get me through my time.”
“You the one don’t understand. Everything you need to get through your time is up here.” He tapped his head. “I been here thirty years, and I’m up for parole again this spring. How you think I did that? By holding onto some thing that I had on the outside? Hell, no.” He tapped his head again. “I did it by living up here. Up here, I’m still a free man; I can still see the outside and breathe free. That’s how I did it, and that’s how you gotta do it. If you don’t, that nickel going to be a dime before you get through.”
In my heart, I knew he was right. Montana had become like a father to me in here. He took me under his wing the first week and showed me the ropes. My first week, I was being escorted to the block with the other new prisoners. I kept looking around, scared and fascinated by the sights and smells; oh God, the smells. I looked at each inmate as the jibes and catcalls got louder, wanting to be tough and not show fear. That’s when I first saw Montana, standing in his cell shaking his head, a sad smile on his face.
Later that week, I was standing by myself in the yard looking out the fence when he walked by.
“You got to keep your eyes still, boy.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“You’re walking through the block with your head spinning around like a lighthouse. Like you’re at the circus or something. And you look scared. You got to cut that out. Look straight ahead and don’t see nothing. Your eyes got to go dead, like they ain’t nothing or nobody else around. That’s lesson one if you want to make your time.”
And that was lesson one. Little by little, he taught me how to go along and get along. Some of the other old-timers gave him a hard time for working with the new guy, but he didn’t seem to mind. And it didn’t seem to matter to him. Like most of the old school convicts Montana had earned the respect of the rest of the population and the guards. Nobody much messed with them.
The next time our group was passing C block going to the yard, Lowside whistled. When I looked over, he pulled his shirt collar down, and I could see my penny hanging around his tattooed neck. I knew then that it was going to be hard to listen to Montana’s advice, but I also knew that I had to try. I talked to him about it that day in the yard.
“I don’t know if I can let it go, Montana.”
“You have to, fish. You got two years left. It’ll eat you up inside. You have to focus on what’s waiting for you on the outside – at least you have that. I got nobody waiting on me. Everybody I used to hang with is either dead or in the joint. But I’m still living for the outside. Every day, I get up and think about what I’m going to do when I’m free. I can’t get my pilot’s license, but I was a heck of a mechanic. I’m going to set me up a little shop at Peachtree-Dekalb airport. Right now, it’s looking like I’m going to be out before you are. You come look me up when you get out, I’ll hook you up with a job. How’d that be?”
“That sounds good, Montana. I appreciate it. I’ll try to forget Lowside and work on doing my time. Thanks, man.”
The next day, I was on work detail, raking the track that runs along the fence. I looked over in the yard and saw Montana talking to Lowside. It looked like they were going at it pretty good. Montana poked a finger in Lowside’s chest and one of his homeboys gave him a shove – hard. Montana went down. I say him get up and dust himself off. He got right in Lowsides face and said something, then walked away. I decided to ask him about it next time I had the chance.
The next morning at chow, the lockdown alarm went off. That meant something had happened and we all had to get back to our cell. As I walked past, I asked the guard on my block what was going on.
“They found Montana on his bunk this morning. He had a shank stuck in the side of his neck.”
“Ahh, man. Do they know who did it?”
“Nobody saw anything. You know that. They found a penny on his chest. That mean anything to you?”
I couldn’t answer. I just shook my head and continued on to my cell. I was solo right then – my last cellmate had got a transfer. As soon as I got to my bunk, they hit the buzzer and all the doors clanged shut on my floor. I sat on my bunk and thought about Montana. It had been a long time since I cried, and I was grateful I was alone then, so I could.
We stayed on lockdown for twelve hours, the evening meal slid through the slot on the floor. Lights out came early, and I lay there in the dark. I had already decided what to do; now I only had to figure out how and when. After things quieted down, I got up and went to the toilet. I pulled the lid off the tank and removed the lift arm that ran between the flush handle and the stopper. In prison toilets, this was a piece of plastic, but it would still serve my purpose. Usually, nobody used any toilet parts for shivs, because it would become obvious quickly that it didn’t flush anymore. When the guards found out, that was an automatic solitary, but I figured, I was headed for the hole anyway.
I worked the piece of plastic against the floor of my cell until I had a point on one end. I wrapped a strip from the tail of my shirt around the other end and put the shiv in my sock. It was a week before I had the opportunity to use it.
Lowside and his boys were lifting weights. He was spotting for somebody doing bench presses. I strolled along the fence until I was behind him then slipped up from behind just as he took the weight bar in both hands. I looked around to make sure I would have time, then bent down and pulled the shiv from my sock. As I straightened up, Lowside started to turn, but not quick enough. As I shoved the blade into his head, just behind the earlobe, I whispered into the other ear. “This is for Montana.”
He screamed and grabbed the side of his head as he fell, but he was dead before he hit the ground. The alarm sounded and guards were on the run before his buddies could react. As he hit the ground, I reached down and inside his shirt. I grabbed the chain that held my penny and yanked it away, just as the guards pulled me off.
When they got me to the hole, they through me in and bolted the door. As they turned out the lights plunging the small cell into total darkness, I could feel the penny still grasped in my hand. And I thought of my young wife and Montana, both free and on the outside.

Fighting Spam

What is Spam
According to recent statistics, 60% of all email is spam and another 25% are viruses. That’s 85% of this essential communication tool clogged up with wasteful and harmful messages.
Many people have only recently become introduced to spam, but in reality, it has been around since the mid ‘90s – before many of us even started using email. There are conflicting stories on who actually started spam, and most of the conflict lies in the definition of the word. Therein lies a major problem in reducing or eliminating spam. Someone’s marketing material is someone else’s spam.
The closest metaphor to the spam problem lies in your mailbox at home and the junk mail we have been receiving all our lives. Is the catalog that will almost certainly be in your mailbox when you get home junk mail? It depends. If it’s from someone you want to do business with, it’s a useful catalog – if not it’s junk mail.
People have complained about junk mail as long as there has been a postal service, but what could you do about it? Ban junk mail and you won’t get that catalog you want for Christmas shopping or the pizza coupon you are going to use this weekend. The same issues exist for spam – you first have to define it.
Many companies do legitimate mass mailings of email. Weekly, I receive an email from several vendors with which I do business. I quickly glance at them, decide if there is anything useful and either file or delete them. But what would happen if I suddenly decided I didn’t want one of them any more? They would immediately become spam! The email hasn’t changed, only my attitude toward it.
That’s fine, you say, but nobody wants to buy the Viagra, or get the new home mortgage, or the stock tips that clog our inboxes. Well, that’s just not true. If they weren’t making money for someone, they wouldn’t exist. Someone is buying this stuff, if even just a few people. And that’s where the metaphor with junk mail breaks down.
It costs real money to send junk mail through the postal service. There has to be a decent return on the investment to make the effort worthwhile. But millions of emails can be sent for pennies, so the risk is so low that any return is worth the investment.
What about the Can-Spam act? It’s a great effort and a reasonable direction to take. The problem is that it only affects people in this country. The majority of spam comes form the Far East, India, Europe, and Canada. And it still doesn’t do enough to define spam or have tough enough teeth behind it.
How did they get my email address?
There are many answers to this. First, just as with postal junk mail, legitimate companies sell their address lists. Any time you give your email address to any company, you are taking the chance that they will sell it someone else who may in turn sell it to another party.
More often it is a less than reputable company fishing for email addresses under false pretenses. It may be a contest or drawing, a free sample or a request for information. Regardless of what the pretext is, any time you type your email address into a web page, you are saying send me all the junk mail you want to. Besides simply avoiding this practice, there is more advice under the heading - How Can I Stop It.
Also, if your email address is on a web site anywhere, say associated with your business or work, it is subject to abuse. There are computers running robotics programs out there that search through the internet looking at page after page and copying any email address they find on those sites. There are ways to foil this, but not quite as easily.
Then there are programs that simply make up email addresses. To start they have a database of company names. Then they run a program against this database, making an assumption about the domain name used (say the company is Microsoft, they will assume Microsoft.com). Then they append common names to the front of this using various combinations. Remember, it’s not costing them anything extra to send out millions of bad emails. So this machine my create johna@microsoft.com, johnb@microsoft.com, etc. Unless you have a very unusual name and/or company name, sooner or later one of these robots will get also. You can’t avoid these, but you can keep from making it worse if you get one.
Viruses, which are like spam but more dangerous usually get your address a different way. If someone has or runs a virus on their computer, most of them will open and read that person’s address book and start sending itself to everyone on that list. In this way, the email address looks like it comes from a friend or coworker. What should be a tip off however, is that the subject line and body of the email will usually not make sense. If you’re not expecting the email and it looks strange, delete it! If you’re not sure, call or email this person and ask if they sent it to you. Under no circumstances open an attachment unless you are absolutely sure of the sender, the file, and its purpose.
How can I stop it
Regardless of how they get your address, there are ways to minimize the problem to a certain degree. The first line of defense is when and how you give out your address. Minimally, you should have two email addresses, one for work, and one for everything else. MSN, Yahoo, and many other websites let you create email addresses for free. Use the Yahoo or other public email address for anything that is not work related. If you never use your work email address at public websites, you will greatly reduce the risk of getting spam.
Ideally, create two or three of these public addresses. I have three. One I use at sites or for people that I really want to get email from, and I trust the site or person. The second, I use for sites where I probably want their email, but I don’t necessarily trust them not to sell it. Third, is an address I use when I don’t want anything from the company, and never plan on reading it if they send it. This third address, I never even go to. It can fill up with spam for all I care. The second address gets a lot of spam, but I still look at it occasionally and clean it out looking for legitimate mail. The main public address I clean daily and am very careful about when and where I use it.
As for robots that scan websites farming email addresses, they can be stopped but with more difficulty. What these programs are doing is looking for something that looks like an email address, so you have to make the email address look like something else. One way to accomplish this is to simply explain on the site how email addresses are created, if there is a standard form. For instance, state at the top of the page that all email addresses at this company are first name, last initial, followed by @company.com. Then you need only supply a list of names and a human can determine your email address where a machine cannot.
Another lesser-used method is to change the address so that even if it is harvested, it is useless. For instance, use the word at instead of @, or add a space in the address. Humans can figure it out, but machines can’t.
The bottom line in all this is, protect your email address. The more you use it and give it out, the more spam you will get.
What happens when I get it?
Okay, you’ve done the best you can, but you still get spam. What can you do? First, let’s look at what not to do. Don’t reply to spam. I know it’s tempting to hit the reply button and type in some vulgar reply, but all you are doing is validating that they have reached a legitimate address. This will only flag your address for more spam.
The same goes for clicking on any link in the email, including something that will allegedly let you opt out of future emails. Think about it. If the company were that legitimate, you wouldn’t be getting the spam in the first place.
One major problem with this is setting up an out of office message when you are on vacation. If there isn’t some way of specifying who does or doesn’t get the reply, then you will increase the spam threat. This can’t be helped, but it does increase spam.
So what do you do? Simple. Just delete it. Trust me. Anything else is going to take you more time and be less effective. Want to do something anyway? Okay, we will take a brief look at filters. These are rules you set up in your email program that handle certain pieces of email. How this is done is different from system to system. We will use Outlook Express in the examples below. Your system may be different, but this should give you some guidance with which to get started.
In Outlook Express, you would click on Tools, then Message Rules. Here, you will set up the Condition, and the Action of the rule. In other words, on what mail do you run the rule, and what does it do. The bottom window is where you will give this rule a name. We’ll do a couple of simple examples. First, let’s say you get a spam from somebody@somewhere.com.
Highlight the message and click on the Message menu option. The simplest thing to do would be click on the Block Sender option. The problem with this is one of the many reasons that spam filters don’t work. This email may come from somebody@somewhere.com. The next one will come from somebody1@somewhereelse.com, and so forth. But, there is little to lose, so go ahead and click on Block Sender.
But we want to actually create a rule for this message, so open the Message menu back up and click on Create Rule From Message… This will open up a New Mail Rule window with one option already selected. In the top window, Where the From line contains people, is already checked and the sender is filled in the third window. If you checked Delete It in the second window, you will be doing the same thing as blocking the sender.
So instead, uncheck the box in the first window and check the Where the Subject line option. Notice this changes the verbiage in window three. In the second window, rather than delete it, check the option to Move it to the specified folder. We don’t want to start deleting messages until we are sure of what we are doing.
Now in the third window, we have to specify what we are moving. Click on the blue link that says, contains specific words to bring up another window. Now in the top box, type in words from the subject line of the email that would trigger it as spam. Be very specific and careful. For instance, Viagra would be a good choice. Doctor may not be unless you are sure you are never going to get a legitimate email from your doctor. Also, note that this is going to have the same problems as trying to block a sender. This rule will block Viagra, but not vi agra, or vi-agra, or any other variation. When you type in the word(s), click Add and then Okay.
Now click on the specified link. If you don’t already have one, click on New Folder and create on called junk or spam. Move all your suspected junk mail here until you are sure you aren’t getting rid of good mail. Then you can change the rule to delete it.
Notice in the top window there are many different ways to identify the mail you don’t want to see. You will need to experiment a bit to find what works best. Before clicking OK to finish the rule, drop down to the fourth box and give this rule a name, like Viagra spam. This way you can find it easy later, (under the Tools, Message Rules menu) to change or delete it.
What’s Next?
No one knows yet. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. There are a lot of very smart people spending millions of dollars trying to fight spam. But there are just as many creating it, and every time a tool gets invented to fight it, another gets invented to work around that tool. The Can-Spam act is a good start, but it isn’t global enough or tough enough.
Meanwhile, we can all do our part to prevent the spread of spam as much as possible. Protect your email address to protect your sanity. Don’t reply to spam and never click on a link inside of a spam email. If we all do our part, maybe we can put spam back on the shelf where it belongs.
Darryl Brooks is fifty years old and a lifetime resident of Atlanta, Georgia. He has been a computer expert for twenty years and recently began writing technical articles, short fiction, and book reviews. His article, ‘38 Seconds’ was recently published in Runner’s Journal. His fiction article ‘One Day’ won 2nd place in the ACW monthly writing contest. His drabble, ‘The Three Moons’ has been selected for publication by Between Kisses.

The Button

“That’s all I gotta do?”
“That’s all.”
“Just push the button?”
“Just push the button.”
“Okay, tell me again,” Ted Lambeth said.

He was sitting in the chair across from Doctor Piccoli’s desk, his leg crossed, foot twitching.
Neil Piccoli gave a sigh and started again.
“It’s all biometrics, Mr. Lambeth. When you grasp the handle to enter the chamber, it will take your palm print. Once the door closes and is hermetically sealed, a sensor will perform a retinal scan. Finally, when you push the button, it will take your fingerprint. This will be the final verification of your identity and act as your signature that you initiated the process. It will also commence the transfer of funds for payment.”
“Will it hurt?”
Neil looked at his patient for a few seconds before responding.
“Medical science has made quite a few advancements in the last half of the twenty-second century. Until recently, with a process of this magnitude there would be discomfort. Using this method however, a small electrode is implanted in the thalamus portion of your brain. This will eliminate all pain until normal healing can occur.”
“How long will it take?”
“The operation? About an hour. You, however, will not notice the passage of time during the process.
Ted sat there a few more minutes. “Okay,” he said, standing up, “Let’s do it.”
Doctor Piccoli showed him into the inner sanctum. It was decorated like a small sitting room, except for the titanium chamber in the corner.
“Take as much time as you need. You can get undressed in here and enter the chamber at your leisure. When you are finished, there is a robe you can put on to be more comfortable. Feel free to wear it home. I’ll be waiting outside.” With that, Doctor Piccoli turned and left the room, leaving Ted Lambeth alone with his decision.
The doctor returned to his desk and began working on routine files with his Tele-Sponder. He knew from experience that it would probably be at least two hours before the patient was finished and ready to face the world. He smiled to himself as, forty-two minutes later, he heard the distinct hum from the chamber inside.
Almost exactly two hours after being shown into the chamber, the patient returned to the chair, now wearing a loose housecoat, buttoned at the front. “Well, Miss Lambeth, how do you feel?”

The Day After

My alarm woke me up at 5:00 Saturday morning, July 27, 1996. I didn’t really know it was a weekend. I had put in seven consecutive eighteen-hour days and I had a little more than a week to go. I was working as volunteer security for the Olympic Games in Atlanta. How I got here and why I was working these insane hours is another story, but here I was. I had to be downtown by six and I would stay there until I was relieved at midnight. I had slept like the dead, but something was nagging at the back of my mind.

“Did somebody call us in the middle of the night?” I asked my wife as I started pouring coffee down my throat.
“Someone? At least five people called last night.”
“Who called? What did they want?”
“Everyone. They wanted to know if you were all right. A bomb exploded last night. People were killed.”
A sinking feeling hit me in the gut. I wanted to cry, but I knew that was the fatigue more than anything. “Where? Where was the bomb? When was the explosion?”
“It was in Centennial Park. Around one o’clock.”
Three thoughts hit me at once. It wasn’t my watch, it happened about a block from one of my checkpoints, and I drove past within forty-five minutes of the explosion.
“I have to go. It’s going to get ugly today.” We had been hammering the Olympic Committee since day one. We didn’t have enough volunteers. There were people sitting around with nothing to do in venues that were overbooked, and downtown, in the center of everything, we were stretched too thin.
I got in my car and drove to our secure lot next to the Olympic Perimeter Center command post. There were more of the regular army guys manning the post than normal. Rather than the good natured joking that usually accompanied checking in, everything was grim and business like. Every compartment was checked, every bag opened, a mirror was run under the vehicle. These privates and corporals had checked me through every day for a week, but now things had changed. It was real.
I walked into the command post, grabbed a radio, and got what few details there were. My CO told me that about 1:20 a device had exploded near the stage in the park. At least one dead, many injured. No one knew much of anything else.
I proceeded to the muster tent to greet and deploy my group of volunteers. I knew that a major part of my duties that day would involve moral and keeping everyone focused. When I entered the tent, there was a large addition to my usual group. This turned out to be good because over half of my force failed to show up that morning. Bad news travels fast. About thirty young men and women stood in the corner wearing the brown uniform of the U.S. Border Patrol. I guess someone decided to take things more serious.
I deployed the Border Patrol as a unit to my largest and busiest gate. This was the one that screened spectators entering the Georgia Dome where both basketball and gymnastics were competing. It was an absolute pleasure working with these kids. They were enthusiastic and eager. They were also very knowledgeable about the mission – after all, this was a tiny border they were patrolling.
The day proceeded as normal running from post to post and gate to gate, handling personnel problems and checking security levels. What was different about the rest of the day was the extra time spent talking to the volunteers. There were a hundred rumors floating around that need to be squelched and there were many real fears that I handled as best I could. Our mission hadn’t changed, but the consequences of failure were more heartfelt.
Around three p.m. as I was handling shift change for most of my staff, a sergeant with Atlanta Police came over and pulled me aside. “I wanted to let you know. They got the guy that did it. He was one of you.”
“One of who?”
“He was a volunteer security officer. One of you guys set the bomb.” He walked off with a smug look. It was no secret that APD didn’t care for the volunteer security force. They wanted to handle all the security themselves. They weren’t real clear on how they wanted to fill the void that would have been left without the thousands of volunteers.
Great. My job just got better. Until I knew better, I decided to treat this as one more rumor and try to keep moral up. At least there was one gate I didn’t have to worry about. The Border Patrol was a plug and play operation. I left them alone – they did the job.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom. As with any other day at the games, there was some entertainment to be had. After waiting for Secret Service to clear President Clinton from the basketball venue, Arnold Schwarzenegger came out to get into his limo. I decided to feed him a straight line. “Hey, Arnold. Are you leaving?”
“I’ll be back,” he shot back without hesitation.
Later that evening, I got a call for immediate assistance from the V.I.P. gate. I had placed the volunteers from Sydney, Australia there to work together. They needed the training for their upcoming 2000 Games.
“What’s the problem?”
“We have a bloke here without proper credentials. He says he is supposed to give an interview, but I’ve never heard of him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Evander Holyfield. He claims to be a boxer.”
Laughing, I replied, “Put him on. I can I.D. him over the radio. I proceeded to verify the heavyweight champion and got him through security.
As the last of the venues slowed down for the night and my shift ended, I left through my perimeter on International Blvd., and proceeded to walk down the hill one block to Centennial Park. I hadn’t been to the park since the Games began. I passed through the outer fence, approached the yellow crime scene tape, and stood looking across to the scorched area in the grass.
I stood there for a few minutes, trying to gather my thoughts about that night. But I had just finished another eighteen hours, I had eight more days to go, and my mind and body were numb. I left, went back to my car and drove home for another too short night, praying only that the phone wouldn’t ring.

My Dad's Yard

My dad lived in the same house for thirty years, and at least five days a week for those thirty years he spent time in his yard. That’s almost eight thousand times he put on whatever passed for his yard clothes at that time and ventured out to tend to the various chores that made the yard what it was. It was never one of those showcase yards you would see in Better Homes & Gardens, but it was home.

When my brother and I were five, our family moved into our first house. We had lived in an apartment as infants, and a rented duplex after that. My first memory of this house is the back yard. It was about a half-acre with grass and some trees close to the house, and the back three-quarters wooded. Weekends when we first moved in my Dad, Grandfather, and some uncles and cousins spent all their time clearing this lot and turning it into a ‘yard.’ My mother and grandmother were in charge of refreshments.

My brother and I weren’t allowed past the edge of the house while this work was going on. Trees were falling, underbrush was being burned, and machetes were flailing through the bushes. I don’t know how much time was spent on this project. I remember the woods were there, and then they were gone. In their place was a huge expanse of fescue grass, broken only by a bed of Irises in the middle and a bed of roses to one side. The only trees left were a tall sycamore in the middle, a huge shady water oak in one corner, a wild cherry close to the house, and two hickories on the other side.

Our family lived together in that house for the next thirteen years – and five days a week or more for those years, it was always the same. My father came home from his office in downtown Atlanta as an insurance underwriter. First, in a 1957 Chevrolet, then in a 1963 Volkswagen beetle, and finally in a 1968 Volkswagen square-back. He got home, found out how much time before dinner, changed into his ‘work clothes’, and went out to Work In The Yard.

Work in the yard was a phrase that covered a hundred activities over the years. There were hedges to plant and then trim, grass to seed and then mow, ditches to dig, and flowers to plant. He tackled each task with a seriousness and focus, as if this way, and no other, was the way to accomplish the mission. And accomplish them he did, whether it took an hour or months an hour at a time.

And heaven help the boy that slowed or reversed any of this work. If he found a small footprint in a bed of new seed, or a young twig was broken, there followed much finger pointing. We both found that the best thing about having a brother was there was always someone else to take the blame. Neither of us ever did anything, the other brother did.

As they say, though, neither wind nor rain nor dark of night would keep him from his appointed rounds. There was always some task that needed attention. It might just be watering a new bed or trimming a hedge. It might be something major like digging the ditches that ran across two sides of our property. No job was too small or too large.

There was the time that one of the trees left in the lower part of the yard dropped a small limb on the roof. Dad decided that tree had to come down before it caused more damage. Armed with only an ax, he began chopping down the wild cherry. As it got closer to falling, he looped a rope around the trunk above a high limb. He gave the other end of the rope to my mother. She was placed out of range of the falling tree and told to pull with constant pressure while Dad finished chopping through the trunk. As the tree began to sway with the final swings of the ax, Mom began tugging on the rope causing the tree to rock. Swaying the wrong way, the tree finally broke and fell on the house, creasing the gutter. Dad was not pleased.

After my brother and I moved out, my father retired, and my mother passed on, he continued to live in that house for several more years before moving to his current house. During that time, I know that he continued his daily rituals until the day he left, although retirement left his schedule open to hours that were more flexible. Any addition or removal from the yard would be a topic of our frequent phone conversations. If I stopped by for a visit, I would spend at least part of that time walking around the yard where I grew up.

He has moved to a new house and he still spends a lot of time tending to his yard. Since I don’t see it quite as often, every visit is accompanied by a stack of photos of things in bloom or projects in progress. I know he still enjoys the design and fulfillment of landscaping and things growing.

I miss the old yard, though. I could walk out into the middle it and look at the trees that I climbed and fell from. I could spot the location of the bases on the baseball field and the location of the badminton court. I could look at the shrub in the middle of it all that I always jumped over as I ran back toward the house, when it was shorter and I could jump higher. I could stand in that yard and be home again.

St. Simons

This is a piece in progress .....

Vince Diamond ran along Broadway on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Less than a mile from the beach, this flat residential street was lined with massive old oaks and small bungalows. Interspersed with the cottages was the occasional new home or construction site. Everywhere on St. Simons, new houses and condominiums were being built on any available piece of land. The long time residents complained, but such was the price of progress, and the tax man loved it.

Vince had rented a condo on the beach for a short getaway from his private investigation business and the hustle of Atlanta. It was just a few hours away on the Georgia coast. He had woken early and went out for his normal morning run, absent the hills of Atlanta. It was late fall and a chill was in the air. He had followed a meandering course around the island and would soon reach a point where he needed to turn around and head back home.

He decided to go one more mile as he passed an almost completed stucco home on his right. The exterior was finished and there was glass in all the windows, creating a shadowy interior. There was no one working on the house, and the equipment scattered about the yard looked unused. He wondered briefly if the builder had run out of money.

****

Carl Vella stood in the cool, dark interior of the abandoned house looking through the picture window in front. Danny Stoker and Howard Chapa walked to the edge of the living room from the back bedroom.

“Carl, what the hell you doing?” asked Danny, “we’re trying to hide out here, and you’re standing there like a freaking Christmas tree in the window.”

“Don’t worry about it. You can’t see in from the outside, it’s too dark,” Carl replied.

Danny and Howard looked toward the window as a lone runner went by heading north. As he passed, he looked toward the house.

Danny ducked back into the shadows, “Get down, you moron!”

Carl ducked his head, but stayed rooted to the same spot. The runner kept looking at the house as he ran past.

“Relax, I’m telling you. He couldn’t see in,” Carl said, but not as certain as before.

“I hope not,” said Howard, “we been stashed here for a week, and you might have blown it being stupid.”
“Who you calling stupid?”

Danny grabbed Carl by the arm. “Shut up, everybody! Let’s move back into the garage. It’s dark in there. We can keep a watch and slip out the back if we have to. If somebody comes snooping around, we’ll take care of it”
The three went through the unfinished kitchen into the garage. Here they had plywood nailed over the front windows with a couple of small slits where they could keep watch. The moved three buckets over and sat down, grabbing some food and water from their stash hidden in a utility closet.

They had discovered the house a month ago when scouting the island for a place they could hole up for a while. The place was abandoned then and there was no sign anyone had been there since. They had slipped in late at night a week before after several trips sneaking in food, water, and camping supplies.

****

Vince had followed Broadway to end, and then turned left onto Frederica. A little further, he figured he had come about three miles and was ready to turn back. If he followed the same route home, he’d have six, then it was time for a shower and a big breakfast in the village.

He needed a bathroom break and started looking around for some bushes to duck behind. As he passed the construction site again, he slowed and looked around carefully, hoping to spot a port-a-john. Seeing nothing, he moved on. The houses were too close on either side to offer any privacy. He decided he could make it until he got back home.

****

Carl was looking out one window, while Danny and Howard were huddled around the other.

Howard watched as the man slowed and gave their hideout a close look. “Son of a bitch!”

Danny looked over at Carl. “Well, what do you say now, genius?

“I’ll take care of it,” said Carl.

“You’d damn well better. All this work down the toilet.”

Carl slipped out the back of the garage and through the marshy woods behind the house. He emerged onto a dirt road one block over. Peachtree Road left the same main drag as Broadway, running parallel for a bit until petering out into a dirt road where the wetlands encroached making development impossible.

Here, they had parked their old white panel van. Carl hopped in, got the engine started and drove slowly trying to avoid getting bogged down. He sped up a bit as the tires met pavement and he began looking for the next road that would cut over to Broadway.

****

Vince was glad he had turned around when he did. He still had two blocks to go before the main road, and once there, he was still over a mile out. He glanced to the left, checking for cars, as he passed the next intersection. An old white van was approaching slowly. It looked like a painter or plumber was lost, looking for his next job.

He was halfway to the next street when he heard the van turn onto the road behind him. He heard the van speed up, but wasn’t concerned as he was on the other side of the street – he always ran facing traffic. He heard the engine roar louder as the van continued to accelerate. Christ, he thought, this guy must be pissed. He looked over his shoulder in time to see the grill on the front of the van bearing down on him, the left tire coming up on the curb. Vince jumped to the left, hitting the ground with a grunt, as the van swerved back into the road. He caught a glimpse of the driver as he passed; a thin white man with a scraggly beard, wearing a ball cap.

Vince rolled over onto his side, flexing and testing his muscles and joints. Nothing seemed to be injured, but his left knee and shoulder were sore where he landed. He sat up as the van disappeared ahead around the corner to the left. What the hell was that about, he thought. He got up and brushed as much dirt off his legs as he could and began jogging back down the street. He looked as he crossed the next road, and saw no sign of the van.

****

Carl took his next right, then a left on Broadway, spotting his quarry immediately. He looked around and saw no one else on the quiet street. Punching the accelerator, he cut the wheel to the left, speeding as he bore down on the running man. The runner looked over his shoulder just as Carl got his front left wheel on the curb just a few yards away from impact. The runner suddenly leaped to the left, landing on the ground just out of reach. He cut the wheel back to the right and got the van back on pavement, cursing.

At the next street, he turned back left, speeding back to another left on Peachtree. He drove a block or so further and pulled to the curb. Shit, he thought, Danny’s gonna be pissed. That guy will be on the main road by now, I can’t hit him there. I better at least try to find out where he’s going.

He pulled into the next drive and turned around, heading straight back down to Demere, the main road through that part of the island. When he got there, he pulled up to the stop and waited, looking both directions. He spotted the runner on the other side of the road approaching from the right. I’ll wait here and wait for him to pass, then figure out where he’s headed.

****
Vince ran on down to the corner of Demere and hung a left, crossing the busy road to the sidewalk on the other side. His left leg was beginning to get sore; not quite a limp, but he would need ice and a hot bath later. He was still wondering what was up with that van when he saw it pull up to the stop at Peachtree up ahead. He wondered briefly about the wisdom of approaching the driver. He didn’t know what sort of weapon the guy might have, or who else might be in the back of the van.

He decided to hell with wisdom, grabbed up a fallen limb and started back across Demere. Drivers braked and sounded their horns at the crazy runner crossing the street with a stick in his hand. As he approached Peachtree and neared the van, the driver suddenly put it in reverse and shot back down the street, screeching tires and swerving. Vince thought the van was going to tip over as the driver tried to maintain control while he sped up in reverse. The driver of the van finally resumed control, backed into the next side street and took off back up Peachtree. Vince dropped the stick and crossed back over Demere at the next break in traffic. He kept a watch over his shoulder as he passed the one-mile mark and began looking for his turn back toward the beach.

****

Before passing his location, the runner looked over and saw Carl at the stop sign. Suddenly, he reached down and picked up a large oak branch and started cutting through traffic to cross the road. What’s that crazy bastard think he’s going to do with that stick? He reached down and pulled the pistol from the waistband of his pants. Seeing all the traffic on Demere, he decided he’d better just get the hell out of here.

He slammed it into reverse and punched the gas. Trying to find the cross street in the dirty rear window, he began to swerve from side to side, almost losing control. He slowed quickly as he reached the street, backing into it, then accelerating quickly back the way he had come.

He drove past the end of the pavement and drove back down the dirt road, backing into the brush where they had hidden the van earlier. What the hell, am I going to tell Danny...?

“What the hell you mean, he had a stick? A goddamn stick? You got a two ton truck and a pistol and he chased you off with a stick?”

“There were too many people around, I couldn’t shoot him there. Everybody was looking. This crazy bastard running out in front of cars waving a limb. They was all looking at me. I had to get out of there.”

Danny glanced at Howard shaking his head as he went back to the bedroom. “Leave me the hell alone for a minute. I got to think what to do about this.”

****

Vince completed his run without further incident. He crossed the causeway over the marsh that led him back to the beach. The water was high in the marsh and egrets roosted everywhere. He made the last turn and ran along the beach road to his condo. He took a long hot shower, and then made a pot of coffee. Grabbing a mug of the fresh brew, he went out on the patio to look at the ocean, remembering the strange events on his run. He had to think what to do about it.

An hour later, he was no closer to an answer. He decided to chalk the whole thing up to some crazy behind the wheel and try to forget about it. Tomorrow, maybe he would find a different route to run. He finished dressing, and got on his motorcycle for the short drive into the Village. He thought he’d spend the day wandering through the shops that lined the pier and have some lunch at Barbara Jean’s.

****
Danny came back into the kitchen where Carl and Howard were playing gin rummy.

Howard slapped his cards down on the makeshift table. “Gin! Let’s see. That makes seven hundred, fifty dollars you owe me.”

“No big deal, we’ll take it out of my cut,” said Carl.

“There ain’t gonna be no cut if that guy gets the cops on us,” Danny said as he walked into the room. “We have to figure out if he saw anything and do something about it, or we have to move someplace else. And we have to do it fast.”

“What do you want us to do, boss. You got a plan?” asked Carl.

“First, we have to find out where he is. The island isn’t that big and there are only a few major intersections. The problem is we only got one truck and he’s seen it. That means we have to find some place we can hang out on foot with the truck stashed nearby. And that means the village.”

“Carl, he’s seen you, so you stay here. Me and Howard will drive over to the village. We can park the truck in an alley behind the stores and hang out in front of that Mexican place. If we spot him, we can try to follow him home, or catch him someplace and drag his ass back here. Let’s go.”

Danny and Howard went out through the rear and cut over to where the van was parked. Getting in, they drove out to the end of Peachtree and took a left on Demere to head into the Village.

****

Vince took a slow meandering route along the ocean toward the Village. The day was warming up nicely, and he enjoyed the wind off the beach. He got to the village and found a rare parking spot on the street. Backing into the spot, he hung his helmet on the mirror and walked over to wait outside the restaurant. Barbara Jean’s had the best crab cakes anywhere and there was always a wait to get in.

He was still standing there a few minutes later when he saw a white van with two men in it drive down the center of the Village and pull in behind the hardware store. He thought of the van that almost ran him down, but he got a good look at that driver and it wasn’t these guys. Besides, St. Simons probably had more construction workers per capita than just about anywhere and a lot of them had white vans.

****

Danny took a left off Ocean into the Village. He slowed as he passed the hardware store. The lot behind there would be a good place to hide the truck. As he slowed to make his turn, Howard said, “Oh shit, I think that’s the guy.”

“Don’t look at him or point. He hasn’t seen us. We’re going to park the truck like we said and walk back out here. We’re just two guys having lunch.”

Danny wheeled the van in behind the hardware store and parked in the rear lot. They walked in through the store’s read door and approached the front of the store.

“Can I help you guys?” yelled a clerk from behind the counter.

Danny stopped so fast that Howard ran into him. “Back off, dammit!” he whispered. “Uh, yeah, we need some rope. Can you show my partner the different types of rope you carry?”

He turned to Howard, “Look at the rope and make some notes. I’ll be out front.” With that, Danny walked out the front door, a bell attached to the frame ringing.

When he got out front, he casually glanced across the street, looking for the running guy. Not seeing him, he walked down a few yards to a Mexican restaurant and took an outside table. A few minutes later, Howard walked out of the hardware store carrying a short length of rope.

“Howard, over here.” Howard walked over and took the seat next to Danny.

“What the hell are you doing with that rope? I told you to look at it, not buy any.”

“I felt bad, not buying anything, so I bought three feet of some rope.”

“Three feet. Who the hell buys three feet of rope? Now he’s gonna remember us.” Shaking his head, he muttered, “This is turning into a freakin-“

“Can I get you something to drink?” A waitress had materialized at his side. She slapped down two menus, and some chips and salsa.

“Yeah, two beers,” Danny ordered. The waitress made a note and walked away.

Howard asked, “Did you see him?”

“No. We’ll hang here for a bit, see if he comes out of one of these places.” With that they picked up the menus and decided what they wanted for lunch.

*****

“Vince Diamond, party of one?” the hostess called out the door of Barbara Jean’s.

“Here I am.” Vince walked in behind the hostess and took a small table by a window on the side of the restaurant. From here, he had a view of the shady side street where he parked his bike and part of the main drag out front. He didn’t need to look at the menu. “Two crab cakes and a side of she-crab soup. Un-sweet tea,” he ordered.

Bullet

I woke up at five-thirty like always and checked the temperature. Thirty-five degrees. I looked out the window at the pines glowing from the streetlights in front of my house. Not just thirty-five degrees, but raining and windy. I told myself that I wasn’t going out for my normal run even as I was putting on my foul-weather gear.
I can skip a day; I rationalized, as I put on the long-sleeve t-shirt. I can run later, I thought as I pulled on the nylon windbreaker. I can go to the gym and stay warm and dry. I pulled on a pair of gloves and a cap and headed out the door.
As soon as I opened the door, the wind hit and went right through the layers of clothing. I knew I’d get warmer as I started running so I skipped my normal warm-up walk and began jogging up the street. As I reached the corner, I turned left, heading both uphill and into the wind. The rain lashed at my face and I tried to talk myself into turning around. I had this argument with myself on many mornings, but I knew once I got started I always finished.
As I reached the hedges and trees overgrowing the sidewalk I moved as close as I could to the shelter they provided, but had to be careful not to step into the drainage culvert to my right. I had just settled into a rhythm and allowed my mind to forget about the cold, when a sudden movement startled me. A large shadow moved in the culvert, and I jumped to my left almost landing in the street. My heart was now racing faster than the running produced as I started walking backwards up the hill keeping my eye on the animal that had frightened me.
I was about to turn and start running again when a low whine caught my ear through the wind and rain. I hesitated and looked a little closer when a young Golden Retriever stuck his snout through the shrubbery and looked at me, head bowed. I stopped and crouched, calling softly to the dog.
“Hey, boy. How are you doing? It’s okay, boy. Come here.”

I had to crouch and call until my knees started cramping before the drenched and miserable puppy crawled out onto the sidewalk. His tail was curled up behind him, but I could see a slight, hopeful, wiggle to it as he pulled out toward me with his front paws. I stayed low, even though my knees and back were beginning to ache, one hand out and low urging him on.
Finally, he reached my hand, licking tentatively, and as I started to scratch behind his ears, he rolled over, exposing his belly and showing his trust in the stranger. As I stood up, hearing the cracking in my knees, he flopped back over on his feet and stood expectantly. I guessed he was about six months, getting bigger but still not grown into his legs and feet. “Where’s home, boy?” I asked, seeing no collar or tag. He just stood, tongue hanging out waiting for me to make the next move.
My run was forgotten as I started up and down the cul-de-sacs and side roads in the area, hoping to find an owner in search of a lost puppy. Getting cold and running out of time, I turned and jogged for home, the dog bounding along, playfully nipping at me legs, thinking it a game.
When I got to my house, I opened the garage, letting the dog in out of the rain while I went inside to dry off. I quickly stripped and changed, hearing the scratching and whining of the dog at my garage door. I grabbed a bowl for some water and some ham and cheese from the fridge. I took this out, fed, and watered the Golden Retriever puppy thinking what to do next. I grabbed some towels, rubbing him as dry as I could, and then made a bed out of more towels and some old carpet.
Having made a temporary safe haven for the puppy, I went back inside, showered, and changed for work. Getting my car out of the garage without hurting or losing the puppy, and then getting him back inside, proved to be a feat of engineering. At work that day, I checked the local papers and called all the shelters to see if anyone had reported the missing puppy.
Failing that, I left work at lunch and went home to check on my new resident. As I drove home, I resolved that I might be the new owner of a puppy, and decided to call him Bullet. I left the car in the drive and went in through the front door so I wouldn’t frighten him. As I went into the garage, he bounded up from his blanket and began running in circles showing me how happy he was and how proud he was of the fact that he had rearranged the contents of my garbage can.
I made a makeshift leash from a piece of rope and led him into my yard to take care of his business – a quick look around the garage showed me that someone had housebroken him. Then I loaded him into my car and took him to the vet to be checked out. The vet pronounced me the owner, at least temporarily, of a purebred Golden Retriever puppy about eight months old and in perfect health. On the way home, I stopped by the hardware and bought some supplies and food for Bullet.
Luckily, I live close to work, so we settled into a routine. Up at six, into the yard, and then he would accompany me on abbreviated versions of my morning run. I varied my routes, hoping to find a lost dog poster with a picture of Bullet on it. By the weekend, I had gave up on finding the owner and took Bullet to the pet store for a nicer bed and some toys.
Coming home, Bullet lay in the floor, curled on top of his new bed, his eyes on me, and his tail thumping against the door. As I reached the last stop sign before getting home, I waited for a mother and small boy to cross in front of me. The woman was tugging the boy, who was crying stomping his feet. “I don’t want to go home! I want to find Sherman!” he wailed, trying in vain to pull her in the opposite direction.
As the boy started screaming, Bullet’s head rose from the bed, then he jumped into the seat. “Down, boy,” I said, rubbing his back, “It’s okay.” Ignoring me, he placed his front paws on the dash and put his nose to the windshield. As I put the car in park, he began to bark furiously. This shocked me as he had not barked once since the first morning I brought him home.
“Sherman! Sherman!” the boy was yelling from the crosswalk, trying to escape his mother. Bullet was barking, now jumping from my lap to the passenger seat, looking for the way out. The woman and boy walked around to my side of the car, and I cracked the window enough to talk. “I guess this is your dog, huh?” I asked the boy.” He was laughing and jumping up and down, which wasn’t helping calm Bullet/Sherman down.
“How about you two get into the back seat, and I’ll take you home. The boy, reached for the back door, but the woman held on, eyeing me suspiciously. “It’s okay, I live over on Cedar.” I could see I wasn’t convincing her, so I put on the brake and eased out of the car on my side. I walked around to the passenger side and eased the door open, holding Sherman in with my knees as I attached the leash. He led me back around the car and knocked the little boy down jumping on him. The mother took the leash, finally trusting me. “I don’t know how to thank you. Danny’s been frantic all week. He left Sherman in the back yard after his bath, and he slipped out by the gatepost. We’ve been looking everywhere.”
I finally convinced her to let me give the three of them a ride home. When we got there, I unloaded the rest of the supplies, telling her I would bring the food over later. “I’ve got no use for them. I guess I don’t own a dog anymore.”
As I drove home, the finality of that statement sunk in. I knew that I was already beginning to miss my newfound friend. The consolation was the boundless joy I had just witnessed in both dog and boy. And besides, they lived close by; I could come visit Bullet, uh, Sherman, any time I wanted.

No Hesitation

I had arrived at my friend, Tim’s apartment a little after eight on a Friday night. I assumed it would be another night of drinking beer and watching baseball on the television. He had this new thing called cable TV and always got a good picture.
Tim said, “Frank and I are going to go jump out of an airplane tomorrow, want to come?”
“Sure,” I said with no hesitation. There would be hesitation, but much later.
The next day, we hopped into Tim’s truck and drove to Dalton, Georgia, carpet capitol of the world, and about an hour’s drive north of Atlanta. On the way, I imagine the cars behind us were being spattered with the testosterone that was overflowing from the body of that truck. We were, by God, going to jump out of an airplane. A feat few humans had ever attempted and fewer survived.
We got to the dirt field outside of Dalton and were met by our jumpmaster, a soft-spoken man in his late twenties. He checked out our gear and gave us our jumpsuits. We had to wear our own boots and bring our own helmets. Two of us had motorcycle helmets. Frank had an old football helmet and looked like Jack Nicholson on the back of Dennis Hopper’s bike in Easy Rider.
We went through our paces, learning to fall and to roll. We were given instructions on what to do if this thing or that thing went wrong – not that it would. We were hung up in a harness and given simulated problems where we had to cut away the main chute and deploy the backup. This was in the days before they did tandem jumps. They used a static line to deploy the main chute as you left the plane, but after that, you were on your own.
This went on for several hours while we cooked in the summer heat, wearing full-length jumpsuits, helmets, and heavy boots. We broke for lunch, having received a caution not to eat too much for obvious reasons. It was an unnecessary warning as we were too excited to eat. We sat around and watched the more experienced jumpers go up and come down, talking technique and style. I assumed we would have neither.
Finally, the moment arrived and we were given our parachutes to strap on. These weren’t the colorful sports parachutes you may have seen in air shows. These were the old, round, green, army chutes. The kind Germans used to shoot at. The jumpmaster checked our gear once again and we headed toward the airplane, a Cessna 182.
The 182 is normally a four-seat plane, but all but the pilot’s seat had been removed. That and a modification to the door to allow it to stay open in flight were the changes that had been made to turn it into a jump plane. As we stood by the door. ready to board, we met the pilot who would supervise boarding.
“Who wants to go first?” he asked.
“I would,” I said. We’re not quite to that hesitation part yet. This meant that I would be the last to get in except for the jumpmaster who crouched on the floor next to the pilot. We all crawled in, sat in our assigned spots, and stared at our portion of the bulkhead. We were all sitting on the floor and were too low to look out the windows.
As we started rolling across the grass toward the airstrip, a thought occurred to me that I probably should bring up here. At the tender age of twenty, I had never been up in an airplane before. I wondered, in a sort of detached way, how I felt about flying. I had been so focused all day on jumping out of a plane; it never crossed my mind that I would have to fly in one first.
The jumpmaster had several jobs to do. The first of which was to determine, based on wind speed and direction where to jump. He didn’t do this as scientifically as you might imagine. While over the landing zone, he opened the door and threw out a small weight with a long colorful flag tied to it. However far down wind it landed, the drop zone is that far up wind. The side benefit to this exercise was I got to be the first jumper to see the ground from three thousand feet approximately two inches to my left.
While the pilot circled back around, the jumpmaster went back over the instructions.
“When I say get ready, pivot out so your legs are outside the plane. Put one foot on the step. Grab the strut with both hands and pull yourself out of the plane. I will yell go and tap you on the arm. Let go as you push yourself off. I want to see a good hard arch and I want to see you look up at me as you go through the count. On the count of six, look up and make sure your chute has deployed.”
He had hammered the idea of the arch into us earlier in the day. To make yourself aerodynamic, you bend your legs at the knees, hold your head high, and spread your arms like wings, but slightly behind your back. This causes you to fly in a stable fashion. The count was to go through the process of simulating a real jump. On one, you completed your arch. On two, you grabbed the dummy ripcord, and pulled it on three. Four and five allowed the chute to deploy and by six, you should be hanging under the canopy. If, after a few jumps, you did everything correctly, especially pulling the dummy ripcord, they would take you off static line.
He took my static line and clipped it to the handle bolted to the floor for that purpose. He then handed me a section of the static line.
“What do you want me to do with that?”“ I want you to make sure it is attached to the plane.”“ But I just saw you do it.”
“But if I made a mistake, you’re dead.”
“Good point,” I said as I gave the static line a couple of hard tugs.

About then, we reached the drop zone.
“Ready!” he yelled.
I assumed the position. At that point, I was hanging onto the outside of an airplane flying at sixty miles per hour, three thousand feet over the countryside. I’ve paid as much and stood in line at Six Flags for rides that weren’t this exciting.
“GO!” he screamed and tapped me on the arm.
We had now reached that moment of hesitation. I quickly went through my options. Get back inside, let go, or just keep hanging on.
“Go!” he repeated, tapping me a little harder. I think he was letting me know that option three was not a viable one. Since option one would be a hard one to live down, I went with two and pushed back from the plane, pulling back into a good hard….
There are a couple of things I want to explain here, and one thing that I really shouldn’t need to. The one thing is that the human brain is not really geared up for falling through the air at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It doesn’t quite know what to do with that information and therefore quits processing any information at all. That brings us to the one of the things I wanted to explain which might save you time should you decide to try this sport.
Don’t waste a lot of time taking lessons, listening to lectures, and practicing procedures. We had just spent three hours covering every possible detail and contingency of this operation. At that moment, however, remembering my name would have been difficult.
The other thing I wanted to explain was that Chuck Jones had probably jumped out of an airplane at some point in his career. For those of you who don’t know, Chuck Jones was the cartoonist who drew Wiley Coyote. He obviously had first hand information about what a person (or coyote) does when suddenly confronted with the fact that there was no longer any ground under your feet. The flailing arms and pedaling legs are apparently deeply ingrained in some prehistoric gene. Not only was there was no arch, hard or otherwise, there was no grace.
At any rate, several days later – or six seconds in real time – my parachute opened. At least I guess it did. I never did look up to check. You would think this would be a very pleasing and joyful occasion, but I need to point out another lesson learned by trial and error.
This one is for the men. While still seated comfortably in the aircraft, make sure the straps that run between your legs and harness you to the parachute is located as strategically as possible. When the chute deploys, your velocity will drop from about one hundred twenty to two miles an hour. You will feel the brunt of this sudden deceleration at the shoulder straps and the seat straps. If the straps between your legs aren’t properly located, the result can be very painful. This will also make the rest of the ride down less enjoyable than it should be. That being said, when I did land, I was filled with a sense joy and wonder seldom repeated.
We spent the rest of that summer driving up to Dalton every few weeks and jumping out of airplanes. Since we only got a chance to jump once or twice a month, we never achieved the state of mind and proficiency to come off the static line, but it never lost the thrill, and sometimes the thrill hit a new high. I wanted to share one of those times with you.
One of the things you are taught in class is that once you are falling under the canopy, your descent is so slow that you don’t have a feeling of falling at all. Until you reach a point where you can see the horizon moving do you even feel like you are falling. Soon after that, you can look down and see the earth rising gently toward you. When everything comes together properly, you hit the ground as if jumping from a low bench, landing on your feet. If not, they taught you the technique of rolling to minimize impact. This method, which you practice many times, is feet, knees, hips, shoulder.
On about my third or fourth jump, the wind shifted and picked up while I was up there. Not having the experience to know this, I turned the parachute to face the same direction as always. In this case, I was facing the opposite direction I should have been. Not only was I facing downwind, which moves you faster, but the wind had increased.
I was still moving relatively slow compared to free fall, so I didn’t have a sense of speed until I got close enough to see the horizon in front of me. It didn’t’ look right, so I looked down. The ground was coming at me very fast. I was accustomed to seeing the earth reaching up to pluck me gently from the sky. Now it was about to slap me out of the air very hard. What I truly believed would be my last thought in life was, “Well, it’s been fun.” Most of you have probably already guessed that I lived through this, although with some possible brain damage.
A few seconds later, I was about to impact, so I bent my knees and turned to the side, chanting, “Feet, knees, hips, shoulder, feet, knees, hips, shoulder.” Gravity had other ideas and it turned out to be feet, SHOULDER! I slammed down on my side, but I immediately realized that I was alive, and I didn’t think anything was broken.
I also realized that my parachute was still open and was flying across the field at about fifteen miles an hour with me still attached to it. At this point, I would like to retract my earlier statement about the lessons being a waste of time. After a quarter mile or so of sliding across a very hard and rocky plane, I suddenly remembered something the instructor said.
“If you ever find yourself in a position where the wind grabs your chute and drags you across the ground, do the following.” My memory was that this was a very silly thing at the time I heard it. “Grab the shroud lines closest to the ground and start pulling them toward you. Eventually, this will let the air out of the canopy and you will come to a stop.”
Guess what? It worked. I finally stood up and gathered my parachute around me for the trek back to the landing zone. I was beaten, bruised, and bloody, but I was alive. When I finally got back to where everyone else was, my adrenaline turned to anger as the jumpmaster casually looked up and asked, “Where you been?”
Okay, since you asked, one more story. As I mentioned earlier, the first time I jumped from a plane was also the first time I flew in one. I actually took off in eight airplanes before I finally landed in one. I was supposed to land in one before that, but that particular pilot turned out to be a stunt flyer. After enduring loops, barrel rolls, and buzzing the people on the ground, (“If you don’t come away with grass in your flaps, you didn’t do it right.”), I decided I would take my chances with the chute and told him goodbye at three thousand feet.
The plane I actually landed in was a DC-3. The big twin-engine plane was used by the early airlines and in WWII as transports. There were twenty or so skydivers that were flying from Atlanta to Columbus to jump in a field close by with some soldiers from nearby Fort Benning. We were delayed for several hours while the mechanic replaced a part. This didn’t make me feel great about it, but everyone kept talking about what a great old workhorse the DC-3 was.
Finally, around lunch, we all boarded, stowed our gear, and sat on the floor around the plane. Like the Cessna, all seats had been removed – this was strictly a jumper’s plane. As we took off, I realized that not only had I never landed in a plane, I had never been in one over Atlanta. While the rest of the jumpers sat around and discussed formations and such, I wandered over to look out the window at the city below.
I was probably in awe as any first time flyer at the tiny little houses with the tiny little swimming pools. I couldn’t figure out exactly where we were, so I looked ahead to the horizon to see if I could spot any landmarks. That is when I saw the left propeller stop spinning.
Listening to my finely honed sense of self-preservation (the fact that I was jumping out of planes notwithstanding), I moved to the rear of the plane and put on my parachute. No one paid any attention – many people were working on and adjusting their rigs. I looked down at the altimeter on my reserve chute and saw it climb past two thousand feet. It wasn’t until I started fiddling around with the door that someone noticed.
“What are you doing,” someone asked.
“Well,” I said, “the left engine just quit, and I thought I’d beat the rush.”
I hadn’t noticed in the excitement that the plane had been turning for the last several minutes. One of the more seasoned jumpers went forward, then came back and said, “We’ve lost an engine but the pilot says don’t worry. He can land with one engine without a problem. He’s done it many times.”
We were told to sit and distribute our weight evenly while the pilot took us back to Peacthree-Dekalb Airport. I was the butt of many jokes as everyone needled the rookie about wanting to jump out of the plane just because it had lost an engine. I felt foolish and embarrassed until I felt the plane descend toward the runway for my first landing. That was when I noticed that all the laughing and joking and stopped. It had gone deathly quiet on the plane and I’m sure everyone was praying.

The Olympics

The Olympics

What Came Before

For the previous six years, I belonged to a small group of volunteers, which provided security for The Georgia Games. The Georgia Games is a series of local competitions in over thirty sports that culminate in a three-day event around Atlanta. Georgia is only one of many states that have similar events to celebrate amateur athletics.

In 1990, a friend of mine talked me into joining a group he had organized, called The Phoenix Force to work the weekend event, which took place at that time on and around the campus of Georgia Tech University. My first mission was monitoring a no-parking zone next to the stadium where the opening ceremonies would take place. Three hours of ‘I’m sorry, you can’t park there.” Despite the tedium of this assignment, I enjoyed the spirit of the event and helping people and became a long time volunteer.

Soon after Atlanta was chosen to host the ’96 games, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games approached us at The Phoenix Force. They had watched the Georgia Games the year before and understood that this was a very similar, although much smaller, model of what they would be undertaking. The Phoenix Force was asked to lend our personnel and expertise to help provide volunteer security for the Olympics.

ACOG became a major factor in the 1995 Georgia Games, observing our operation and providing volunteers to work with us – sort of a train the trainer concept. In addition, they began hosting test events and using our volunteers to staff and train security. One of the first was a regional gymnastic tournament at the Georgia Dome. This was held in half the dome on the same night as NCAA basketball championships were being held in the other half. This proved very chaotic, but valuable as this exact set-up was used during the Olympics themselves.

Another early test was an international race-walking event held near the old baseball stadium. This gave us both our first international competition and our first glimpse at the bureaucracy to come. Cuba was a participant in that event and we were schooled on how to handle a potential defector. Above all, we were taught to be subtle and not attract any undue attention. This advice was somewhat mitigated when on the day of the event, in the hot, August, Georgia, heat, the NIS showed up in suits and ties.

Every month or so, we were brought in to work another national or international sporting event that was brought in to test our readiness and work the kinks out of various procedures. There was a diving competition at the new aquatic center at Georgia Tech, field hockey at Clark Atlanta University, and track and field at the Georgia Dome.

In addition to all the live training, there were classes, seminars, and lectures. There were background checks and identification processes, there were uniform fittings and credential sessions. And if that weren’t enough, as the big event drew closer the leaders from the Phoenix Force began meeting with the managers and law enforcement personnel running the individual venues to fine tune security.

Dennis, Randall, and I were going to lead the volunteer security force for what would be known as Olympic Perimeter Center, or OPC. This would be the perimeter and exterior spaces around three of the main centralized venues; the Georgia Dome, the Omni, and the World Congress Center. We would meet with our paid counterparts who were on leave from the Secret Service, the FBI, and the DOD, respectively.

Opening Ceremony

Finally, the big event arrived – July 19, 1996. The games would last a bit over two weeks. For the first week, I would work my normal job under flexible hours from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., then head to the games and work until midnight. On the weekends and the final week, I would be at the games from 6 a.m. until midnight. Sixteen consecutive eighteen-hour days – and I never once felt tired.

The first night was opening ceremony and a chance to test our security with minimal crowds. The ceremony was held at the new Olympic stadium about a mile away and outside our venue. We had seventeen gates around the venue that we would have to staff as well as patrolling key public areas. Based on our extensive and well thought out planning, we would need a minimum of one hundred-seventy people for each shift. The first afternoon, I walked into the muster tent to face the first group of fresh volunteers and was met by- thirty people!

I met with my commanding officer, and he met with his CO and we decided to shut and lock all but two gates. There would be no visitors or athletes that night, and only minimal deliveries. We did so and patrolled the darkened venues for the next several hours, listening to the occasional fireworks coming from the stadium. At midnight, I handed the watch over to the night shift and went home.

Of Strange Packages

One of the primary focuses for security personnel was watching out for unusual or abandoned packages of any kind. It was on my first full day that I encountered the first package. We had heard of a bomb being found and safely detonated in the mail area inside the World Congress Center earlier in the day, so we were already on high alert.

I was working one of the gates, standing several yards in side the gate watching my crew work the crowd. Picture the security checkpoint at the airport, except outside the gate there are just huge unorganized mobs coming in waves, and you’ll get the picture. We had people searching packages, watching the magnetometers, and wanding individuals. I would watch to make sure the people in charge of the gate were staffing and rotating personnel and handling the flow of people as much as possible.

After a bit of observing I turn to head to the next post, when I saw it. In the middle of a grassy square, isolated from most pedestrian traffic was a small box about the size of a shoebox, but more square. I radio the command post and have the CO get a visual using the many security cameras around the area. He immediately sends Atlanta Police to help with crowd control and alerts the bomb squad. Me and a couple of Atlanta PD officers cordon off the area and force pedestrians to walk in a wide perimeter around it. We had to constantly fend off questions about why they couldn’t walk straight from point A to point B. Of course, not carrying a gun, I got more than my share of the heat.

The DOD bomb squad shows up and goes through their routine, using robotics, and shielded armor. They can’t detect any sign of explosives, so finally one office in the bomb suit approaches the package and slowly opens it.

“Sushi!”

“What? What did he say? Sushi?”

One of the rules of the games was that no outside food was allowed in. We were supposed to be checking at our gates, but it wasn’t a priority. The second level of security they would pass through to actually get into a venue would check more thoroughly. A spectator has apparently been turned away at the Omni and instead of finding a trashcan, just dropped his box of sushi in the middle of the green.

We would spend quite a bit of time and effort over the next two weeks protecting people from all manner of suspicious packages. But more on this later.

From Basalt, Colorado to Interpol

Much of the volunteer security force was just that, volunteers who were giving their time to participate and be a part of the event. But a lot of the force were people in law enforcement from all over the world. Under my command, I had a police chief from Basalt Colorado, and a member of the Dade County Florida School Police – whatever that was. There were also officers from other countries. Sydney, Australia had sent quite a few officers to gain experience they would use in the 2000 games. I also had officers from several European countries and a few from Interpol.

I was concerned about all of these seasoned law enforcement officers reporting to someone who had no formal police training. For the most part, however, everything went very smooth. I had a squad of police from Sweden who just disappeared – we believe they just wanted free room and board for the games. The Australian officers were a delight to work with. I did have one crusty old gentlemen from Interpol who gave me a bit of a problem.

He made it clear that he didn’t think it was right to have to answer to someone with no law enforcement experience. I couldn’t necessarily argue with his logic, but the fact remained that I was the boss and he wasn’t. One of my busiest gates was the approach to the venue from Olympic Park. Many tourists came through this way and it was also the main approach to the press area in the World Congress Center. To make matters worse, it was just across the street from a sports bar that had an outside patio and attracted huge crowds throughout the games. This was the time when Macarena was very popular and this bar played the damn song twice an hour.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone. On the second day of the games I took the Interpol officer to this gate and made it his. I told him to radio me if he needed anything, but otherwise it was his to command, and he wouldn’t see me unless there was a problem or he called me. I would swing by once or twice a shift with water and supplies, but otherwise didn’t have to listen to him gripe and didn’t have to hear the Macarena.

Emily

Remember the Alamo? Of course, you do. What isn’t remembered as well outside the annals of Texas History is the Battle of San Jacinto, which followed the Battle of the Alamo. This battle, however, ended quite differently with the Texans scoring a decisive victory and securing their independence.

This victory may have been aided by the assistance of Emily West who distracted Santa Anna during the decisive moments of battle. I believe the facts bear out the veracity of this story. Too much personal history places her with Santa Anna at the time to be ignored. Coupled with this are the facts of the General’s known womanizing, and his absence during the battle itself and I think a case can be made for Emily West winning the day.

On March 2, 1836, Texas declared independence from Mexico. On March 6, the battle of the Alamo was lost and 187 volunteers were killed.

Two months later, an 18-minute battle took place on the banks of the San Jacinto River and secured Texas' independence from Mexico.

After the fall of the Alamo, the Texan army moved east, being chased by the invading armies of Mexico. Settlers fleeing the advance of the tyrant Santa Anna, who was burning Texas settlements, had joined the Texans. The armies reached a marshy lowland where General Sam Houston decided it was time to turn and make a stand.

The Battle of San Jacinto started at 4 o'clock on the afternoon of April 21, 1836. The Texan army consisted of approximately 800 volunteers under the command of General Sam Houston. The Mexican army consisted of approximately 2,000 professional, experienced soldiers under the command of Mexican President and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Santa Anna's army had never lost a battle and a few years before had defeated the French invasion of Mexico.

The enemy was caught by surprise. The battle lasted 18 minutes, but the Mexican defeat was devastating. Only nine Texans were killed or mortally wounded. Six hundred thirty Mexican soldiers were killed, and the number of Mexican soldiers taken prisoner exceeded the entire number of the Texas army.

A rumor persists that this victory was aided intentionally or unintentionally by an indentured servant name Emily West. While no concrete evidence exists during the heat of the battle, I believe that the rumors are based on true events. There are too many documented facts before and after the battle that support this position.

Emily D. West was a freeborn black from New Haven, Connecticut. On October 25, 1835, she signed a contract with agent James Morgan in New York, to work a year as housekeeper at the New Washington Association’s hotel, Morgan's Point, Texas. Emily arrived in Texas in December of 1835. The Mexican government prohibited slavery but James Morgan, like many other immigrants, sidestepped this ban by freeing his slaves upon entering Texas and then making them indentured servants, a practice which Mexico accepted.

On April 16, 1836, while James Morgan was absent in Galveston in command of Fort Travis, Mexican cavalrymen under command of Col. Juan N. Almont arrived at New Washington to seize President David G. Burnet, who was embarking on a schooner for Galveston Island. As the president and his family sailed away, the troops seized Emily and other black servants at Morgan's warehouse, along with a number of white residents and workers. Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna arrived at New Washington the following day, and after three days of resting and looting the warehouses, he ordered the buildings set afire and departed to challenge Sam Houston’s army, which was encamped about ten miles away on Buffalo Bayou. Emily was forced to accompany the Mexican army, doubtless already a rape victim. Santa Anna saw her and admired the tall, long-haired, "very comely Latin looking" woman of about twenty. The president ordered her assigned as a servant in his marquee, or presidential tent. An inveterate womanizer, Santa Anna had staged a fake wedding in San Antonio to convince the mother of one young girl that his intentions were honorable. He saw no need of such formalities with Emily, who had no choice in the matter.

By the evening of April 18, Emily was sharing Santa Anna's silk tent. Colonel Pedro Delgado, Santa Anna's personal aide, recorded that on the morning of the 19th, while the army began its march, Santa Anna remained in bed with his “quadroon mistress.”

About 3:30 in the afternoon, during the Mexican siesta period, Houston distributed his troops in battle array, bracketing the line with the "Twin Sisters" cannon. Shielded by trees and a rise in the terrain, the Texans were able to advance with some security. They were fatigued, they were filthy, famished, and fuming, but Houston was mounted on his white stallion leading the army. Armed with tomahawks, Bowie knives and long rifles, they went forward across the open marshy plain of southeast Texas. A Georgian Huguenot, a Kentucky colonel, and a Scotch-Irishman from Tennessee led the march across the tall grass and down upon a Mexican camp engaged in their afternoon siestas.

Then with cries of "Remember the Alamo," the Texans swooped down on the dismayed Mexican army, pursuing and butchering them long after the battle itself had ended.

Six hundred thirty Mexicans were killed and seven hundred thirty taken prisoner. Texans lost only nine killed or mortally wounded; thirty were less seriously wounded. Among the latter was General Houston, whose ankle was shattered.

According to the legend, Emily was in Santa Anna's presidential quarters when the alarm of the Texan attack was given and detained Santana so long, that order could not be restored readily again.

Santa Anna didn't admit to any hanky panky. In his autobiography, he wrote, that at the time of the battle, “I lay sleeping in the shade of an oak tree, hoping for cooler weather. The filibusters surprised my camp with admirable skill, and I opened my eyes to find myself surrounded by their rifles.”

In reality, Santa Anna escaped from his camp on a horse as Texans routed his troops, but he was captured the next day.

By all accounts, Santa Anna disappeared during the battle. The next day, Sgt. J.A. Sylvester was searching the marshes and brush for hiding Mexican forces when he spotted a Mexican slinking through the brush. Many say that he was wearing a private’s or corporal’s uniform, he claims he was wearing clothing he found at a nearby home, but either way, it was Santa Anna.

The real Emily D. West remained in Texas until early 1837, when she asked for and received a passport allowing her to return home. Isaac Moreland wrote a note to the secretary of state saying that he had met Emily in April 1836, that she was a thirty-six-year-old free woman who had lost her "free" papers at the battleground. She stated that she came from New York in September 1835 with Colonel Morgan and was anxious to return home. Although there is no date on the application housed in the Texas State Archives, Mrs. Lorenzo de Zavala, by then a widow, was planning to return to New York on board Morgan's schooner in March, and it seems possible that Morgan arranged passage aboard for Emily.

**************************************************
Louis Kemp and Ed Kilman, “The Battle of San Jacinto and the San Jacinto Campaign, San Jacinto Museum of History Association 1944

Margaret Swett Henson’s “West, Emily D.” in The Handbook of Texas Online

Davis, Joe Tom. Legendary Texians, Volume III. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1956.

Turner, Martha Anne. “Emily Morgan: Yellow Rose of Texas,”

Hollon, W. Eugene, and Ruth Lapham Butler, eds. William Bollaert’s Texas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press

“Legend of the Yellow Rose.” Texas Highways 33, no. 4 (April 1986): 58-61.

Your Character's Car

What kind of car does your character drive?

In making the movie 48 Hours, there was very little script or rehearsal. The movie was mostly shot in sequence and the story grew and changed as it progressed. Early in the filming, there was a scene where Nick Nolte walked out of his girlfriend’s house to get into his car. The director, Walter Hill, had parked an old beat-up Cadillac convertible in the street with one wheel up on the curb. Seeing that car and how it was parked told Nolte more about his character than any direction would have.

The same is true of the characters in the stories we write. We are often instructed to show and not tell. While there are many visual clues we could give our readers as to the ‘character’ of our characters, few can say as much about their personality than the car they drive. Is it old or new? Well kept or a beater? Is it an expensive status symbol or the cheapest thing with wheels?

Travis Mcgee had two modes of transportation – a houseboat named the 'Busted Flush' that he won in a poker game, and a painted-purple Rolls-Royce that has been converted to a pickup truck called 'Miss Agnes.’ If that were all you knew about this character, you would know a lot.

Kinsey Millhone drives a battered VW that befits her style as a near pauper. This is the antithesis of most male private detectives who drive flashy sports cars, although we are never sure what, if any, car is driven by Spenser, Boston’s favorite son. This begs the question, “What difference does it make what car a character drives?” It may not. There are many other ways to let your readers see your characters, but few can so much with so little.

Next time you are in or by a parking lot, look at the cars parked there. Many, if not most, are non-descript and forgettable. Those aren’t the ones I mean. I’m talking about the ones that grab your attention and make you wonder about who is driving them. The truck that is set so high on large tires you need a ladder to get in. The expensive sports car parked out on the edge of the lot. The older cars – both the pristine antiques that show meticulous care, and the old rust buckets that are barely hanging together. Each of these gives you some insight into the driver, and would give your readers insight into your character.

Consider these sentences, which all describe the same scene.

Dave Johnson got into his car.

Dave Johnson climbed up into his rig, the oversized tires spattered with a coating of mud.

Dave Johnson clicked the remote unlocking and starting his silver Jaguay.

Dave Johnson pried open the door of his ‘63 Dodge, hoping the rusty hinges would hold one more time.

The same guy getting into a car. The first one tells us nothing, while the next three tells us a great deal about who this character is in a single sentence.

This is especially useful in first person narratives. I am frequently at a loss for getting readers to ‘see’ a character that is the first person narrator. You can’t say, “I’m Dave Johnson, and I’m rich.” Well, you can, but it’s a bit clumsy. Better to have the character show the reader who he is rather than you tell them.

My driver brought the Bentley around, but I opted to drive myself, so I went to the carriage house and hopped into the Maserati roadster.

If this were the first sentence in your story or novel, the reader would already know a great deal about your character. Or take the following:

Martha awoke slowly, her muscles aching from sleeping in the back seat of her old Mercedes sedan. Shifting, she looked out the window to see if anyone had noticed her parked along the side of the highway. She had owned the car since it was new; now she hoped to panhandle some money to buy enough gas so she could move it to a safer place.

We know Martha is now homeless, and could be living in any car. But this is a Mercedes she bought new. Now we know she had money at one time. What happened? How did she get here?

Next time you are stuck for a descriptive way to let your readers know about the character you are trying to portray, think about what kind of car they drive.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get on my motorcycle and ride into the sunset.

The Button

“That’s all I gotta do?”

“That’s all.”

“Just push the button?”

“Just push the button.”

“Okay, tell it to me again,” Ted Lambeth said.

He was sitting in the chair across from the desk, his leg crossed, twitching his foot nervously.

Neil Piccoli gave a less than patient sigh and started again.

“You will be in a private room where you can remove your clothes. You enter the chamber that is then heretically sealed, allowing in only pure oxygen. You will take the swab and rub the inside of your cheek, then place it in the vial. You will subject to a retinal scan. Then, when you are ready, you will push the button. This will collect your thumbprint for further identification and serve as your signature that you initiated the procedure.”

“Yeah, but why do I have to go through all that?”

“Mister Lambeth, surely, you must understand that a procedure of this magnitude carries a great deal of risk, responsibility, and liability. First, this absolutely guarantees that you are who you claim to be. DNA, retinal scans, and fingerprints have been known to be flawed or falsified, though rarely. The odds against all three being wrong are much larger than the population of the planet.”

“Second, absolute identification will also check and verify that you have the authority and right to request and initiate this procedure. Finally, of course, we must protect ourselves. Identifying you as the one that pushes the button, launching the procedure will absolutely absolve us of any liability or culpability in the outcome.

The Everything

Hazel Thorne had been working in the basement of Baker Labs for three years, ever since she graduated cum laude from MIT. The basement is where the Research and Development department was located – where they kept the hard-core geeks.

Baker Labs was one of the top peripherals companies in the country. They didn’t build computers, but if you could hook it to a computer, Baker Labs produced it. The R&D department was where they tried to keep on the cutting edge. They were currently looking into new video and wireless applications, as well as researching new mass storage devices.

“Damn it,” Hazel yelled as her laptop locked up for the third time.

“The whiz kid from MIT crashes and burns again,” Rudolph Stellic yelled from the next cubicle.

“Shove it, Rudy; at least I’m working on something new. That MP3 player you’re fooling with is old technology.”

“This isn’t your average MP3 player. I’m developing a simple earpiece that holds 1000 songs and can download from any Bluetooth device in the area. It will revolutionize…”

“Yeah, whatever. Go back to your tunes. If I don’t find this interrupt conflict, I’ll never make the production meeting next week. Cooper’s been riding my ass since that DVD recorder froze up in front of the board two months ago. I have to nail this.”

They worked in silence for a few more hours. Or what passes for silence in a warren of cubes occupied by some of the youngest and brightest technical developers in the country. Baker Labs had been outbidding Microsoft and IBM at job fairs and college placement offices for years and had assembled a team of young stars.

As five o’clock came and went most of the group barely raised their heads or glanced at the clock. The sense of discovery was the thing for these kids. The salary and benefits were a bonus. They would be doing the same thing whether they were paid for it or not.

Finally, around seven, Rudolph stuck his head around the corner.

“Hazel, you going over to The Slice? Most of us are heading out for some beer and pizza.”

“No, you guys go ahead, Rudy. I need to keep working on the driver for this new memory key,” Hazel said without even looking up. She knew Rudy had a crush on her. In spite of her dressing down, she knew she didn’t fit the typical nerd image.

As soon as the rest of the crowd left the basement office, Hazel unplugged the drive she was working on and rebooted her laptop. While Windows restarted, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a small device about the size of an Ipod. A small LCD screen took up one flat side and the other was blank except for a small lens. A wheel and two tiny buttons marred its smooth thin edges.

She had been working on this gadget after hours for months, pilfering parts and code from most of the other projects in R&D. She was now in final testing and she had been more than pleased with the results. As she clicked the buttons and dragged it across her workspace, she could hear Rudy’s computer come to life in the next cube. A few more clicks and the mainframe woke up.

A little after midnight, she shut down, put the device back in her backpack, and left the office. She wore a tired smile with the realization that her dreams and sweat were about to pay off. She would start some real world testing tomorrow. In a few weeks, her vacation came up, and she would start looking for financial backing. If she could find someone to pay her for her genius, so much the better. Either way she would get what she needed. Everything was digital, everything was connected, which meant geeks like her had access to everything.

****

She was early for her appointment with Kevin Forte. Forte, Inc. was one of the better-known venture capital firms in New York City, specializing in high-tech startups. She sat in the marble lobby, fidgeting with the skirt of her new suit, the Pratesi briefcase between her feet.

Following some unseen signal, the receptionist smiled at Hazel. “Mr. Forte will see you now,” she said indicating the massive oak door to her right. She entered and introduced herself to the man.

After some small talk about her background and education, the conversation got around to the purpose of her visit.

“What do you have to show me today?” asked Forte.

Hazel reached into her briefcase and pulled out her little gadget. She clicked one of the buttons and laid it on the man’s desk.

Looking somewhat intrigued, he asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t have a name for it yet. I call it Everything, or E for short,” she said as she began sliding it on the surface of the desk and clicking the buttons, her eyes intent on the tiny screen.

“What, it’s like an MP3 player or camera or something?”

“Oh, yeah, it can play music and take pictures, but it’s so much more. It can do everything,” she replied, glancing at the man’s flat-panel, which had changed as soon as she turned on her device.

The man, oblivious to what was happening on the monitor behind him, looked bemused. “Everything, huh? What do you mean by everything?”

“Well, besides the stuff you mentioned, it’s a PDA, it takes videos, it’s a wireless pointing device, and it has unlimited storage, thanks to the Universal Virtual Offline Storage and Data Access Protocol.”

“Well, you may know technology, but you don’t know much about marketing. Besides coming up with a better name than Everything, we have to produce a decent acronym for that mouthful you just spit out. Besides, how can something that small have unlimited storage.”

“It uses a variety of Wi-Fi protocols to access any data storage device within its range. As a matter of fact,” she said as the screen behind the man changed a few more times in rapid succession, “if you’ll take a look at your monitor, you can see what I mean.”

The man swiveled in his chair to face the monitor, which now showed a split screen with a web browser on the left and a list of system folders on the right. In the right window, in addition to the folders he was accustomed to seeing, there was a grayed out folder named Hazel.

“What the hell is that?” he exclaimed.

“Normally, you wouldn’t be able to see it, but I allowed it to be viewed for the demonstration. It contains a set of files I just off-loaded from the Everything. With a few clicks, I can drop files at computers anywhere. The mainframe at school has a couple of Terabytes of my stuff, and the library close to home holds another twenty Gig. Now take a look at your Favorites folder on the Internet browser.”
The man did so and found that his bookmarks were now supplemented by a folder called Hazel’s Favorites. “I’m not sure I understand. What purpose does all this serve?”

“Besides all the stuff the E can do on its own, I can make any computer within range my own. You have my web pages and My Documents on your computer and I can interface with it using the E as if it were mine. When I go, I can leave the Hazel folder behind as an external storage device. And, since I have downloaded your NICs MAC address, I can access that data from anywhere on the Internet as long as you are connected. So you see, the more systems I come in contact with, the larger my storage and data capacity becomes. Like I said, unlimited.”

“Young lady, this is a very interesting device, and I can see you have put a lot of work into it, but I just don’t see a mass market for it. As you know PDA sales are on the decline. The truth of the matter is there are just so many techies out there with disposable income. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass on this one. Now if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you would remove your files from my computer and put it back as it was. And no tricks, I’ll have my data security experts go over it after you leave.”

Disappointed, Hazel Thorne clicked her E a few times and the files disappeared from the monitor. She wasn’t worried about his security experts. They wouldn’t find tiny file she left behind. However, if the need arose, she could get back in and wake up the computer remotely.

Over the next few weeks, she made appointments and met with several venture capitalists and investors, some of the wealthiest, most powerful and influential men in New York City. Each time she broke out her little E and demonstrated its power and flexibility. Each time she left without backing or funding, but left behind a little piece of the Everything to do her work later on. One company, tech security specialists, had her escorted from the building after scouring the CFOs computer for an hour. Still, they didn’t find the file hidden deep within the computer’s operating system.

That night she filled out the forms she had downloaded from the NCB bank in Grand Cayman and mailed it off with a check to cover the minimum deposit. A week later she received her account information by Fed-Ex and was able to log in and look at her account online.

The next day she entered the front doors of the Water Street branch of Chase Manhattan Bank and waited for the next available customer service person.

“May I help you?” A tall black woman in the requisite blue pinstriped suit approached Hazel.

“Yes, I’d like to open an account.”

“Of course, have a seat right here and we’ll get started. What sort of account did you have in mind?”

“Well, I need a checking account. I’d like one with the minimum required deposit, but I need to make sure I can do wire transfers into and out of the account.”

“That’s fine. All of our accounts allow wire transfers, however the account with no minimum balance will of course have the highest service charges. Perhaps...”

“No, that’s okay. I want to start small, but I need to know I can upgrade the account later.”

“No problem. Just wait right here. I’ve brought up the online forms on my terminal; I just need to get the required paperwork.”

“That’s okay. Do you mind if I listen to some tunes while you get started?” Hazel asked as she pulled out her Everything, plugged in an earphone and began clicking its tiny buttons on the desk.

Six months later, Hazel was sitting on the pool veranda outside a five-star resort at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. She had covered herself with sunscreen and just booted her laptop when a shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a tall, well-tanned man of about forty standing next to her chair.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” she said as she started the E and began accessing various accounts around the world.

“I’m Ted, by the way. Loading up some new songs to your Ipod?”

“Well, I’m definitely loading something to somewhere,” she replied, hoping her tone might put him off.

Oh, well, he thought, she’s a little young anyway. This may be a waste of time. He took out his laptop and started it up. “Might as well check my brokerage accounts,” he said, taking one last stab at impressing the cute young girl in the bikini. “It’s nice, being able to make money while you’re on vacation.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing. You mean you have stocks and stuff?” she turned to him flashing her best smile and rotating the dial on her Everything. “Maybe you could teach me some of that. Could you show me how it works?”

Wired Institute of Technology

Technology had always come easy to Erna Jane, a shy sort who’d happily spend all-nighters alone in the computer lab. But dealing with people? That was difficult. Excruciating, even.So enrolling at the Wired Institute of Technology had been a great move. Almost everyone there was a techno-nerd too, so she never had to explain herself. Up all night writing code? Sweet. Got some coffee, luv?No one ever pried into what anyone else was working on. When it came time to kick her secret project into beta test mode, she approached school founder Phil Hackley and explained – for the first time, to anyone – her revolutionary concept. This could be the next big thing, he immediately recognized, but would it work? He agreed to email his silent partner and benefactor (at the private address that only a select handful knew).Now sitting nervously in a borrowed skirt and blouse in the legendary technology tycoon’s reception area, Erna Jane tried to suppress the urge to flee. “I could get up,” she thought, “and walk casually towards the—”“Young lady? He’ll see you now,” said the receptionist. A door slid open silently and Erna Jane walked in anxiously, briefcase in hand. The man sat in an ergonomically correct chair at a vast gleaming metal desk, empty save for a wireless keyboard and gigantic flat-panel monitor. He looked a lot smaller in person than she’d imagined. He stopped typing and looked up.“Hack doesn’t send too many students my way,” he said in a skeptical but not unfriendly tone. “So whatcha got in the case?”
Erna reached into her briefcase and pulled out her little gadget. She clicked one of the buttons and laid it on the man’s desk.

Looking somewhat intrigued, he asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t have a name for it yet. I call it Everything, or E for short,” she said as she began sliding it on the surface of the desk and clicking the buttons, her eyes intent on the tiny screen.

“What, it’s like an MP3 player or camera or something?”

“Oh, yeah, it can play music and take pictures, but it’s so much more. It can do everything,” she replied, glancing at the man’s flat-panel, which had changed as soon as she turned on her device.

The man, oblivious to what was happening on the monitor behind him, looked bemused. “Everything, huh? What do you mean by everything?”

“Well, besides the stuff you mentioned, it’s a PDA, it takes videos, it is its own built in wireless pointing device, and it has unlimited storage, thanks to the Universal Virtual Offline Storage and Data Access Protocol.”

“Well, you may know technology, but you don’t know much about marketing. Besides coming up with a better name than Everything, we have got to produce a decent acronym for that mouthful you just spit out. Besides, how can something that small have unlimited storage.”

“It uses a variety of Wi-Fi protocols to access any data storage device within its range. As a matter of fact,” she said as the screen behind the man changed a few more times in rapid succession, “if you’ll take a look at your monitor, you can see what I mean.”

The man swiveled in his chair to face the monitor which now showed a split screen with a web browser on the left and a list of system folders on the right. In the right window, in addition to the folders the man was accustomed to seeing, there was a grayed out folder named Erna.

“What the hell is that?” he exclaimed.

“Normally, you wouldn’t be able to see it as it is a hidden, encrypted folder, but I allowed it to be viewed for the demonstration. It contains a set of files I just off-loaded from the Everything. With a few clicks I can drop files at computers anywhere. The mainframe at school has a couple of Terabytes of my stuff, and the library close to home holds another twenty Gig. Now take a look at your Favorites folder on the Internet browser.”
The man did so and found that his bookmarks were now supplemented by a folder called Erna’s Favorites. “I’m not sure I understand. What purpose does all this serve?”

“Besides all the stuff the E can do on its own, I can make any computer in range my own. You have my web pages and My Documents on your computer and I can interface with it using the E as if it were mine. When I go, I can leave the Erna folder behind as an external storage device. And, since I have downloaded your NICs MAC address, I can access that data from anywhere on the Internet as long as you are connected. So you see, the more systems I come in contact with, the larger my storage and data capacity becomes. Like I said, unlimited.”

“Young lady, this is a very interesting device, and I can see you have put a lot of work into it, but I just don’t see a mass market for it. As you know the PDA market is on the decline. The truth of the matter is there are just so many geeks out there with disposable income. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass on this one. Now if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you would remove your files from my computer and put it back like it was. And no tricks, I’ll have my data security experts go over it after you leave.”

Disappointed, Erna Jane clicked her E a few times and the files disappeared from the monitor. She wasn’t worried about his security experts. The tiny file she left behind would never be found or deleted. However, if the need arose, she could get back in and wake up the computer remotely.

Over the next several weeks, she made appointments and met with several venture capitalists and investors, some of the wealthiest, most powerful and influential men in New York City. Each time she broke out her little E and demonstrated its power and flexibility. Each time she left without backing or funding, but left behind a little piece of the Everything to do her work later on. After all, every good techie has a backup.

That night she filled out the forms she had downloaded from the NCB bank in Grand Cayman and mailed it off with a check to cover the minimum deposit. A week later she received her account information by Fed-Ex and was able to log in and look at her account online.

The next day she entered the front doors of the Water Street branch of Chase Manhattan Bank and waited for the next available customer service person.

“May I help you?” A tall black woman in the requisite blue pinstriped suit approached Erna.

“Yes, I’d like to open an account.”

“Of course, have a seat right here and we’ll get started. What sort of account did you have in mind?”

“Well, I need a checking account. I’d like one with the minimum required deposit, but I need to make sure I can do wire transfers into and out of the account.”

“That’s fine. All of our accounts allow wire transfers, however the account with no minimum balance will of course have the highest service charges. Perhaps...”

“No, that’s okay. I want to start small, but I need to know I can upgrade the account later.”

“No problem. Just wait right here and I’ll get the required paperwork while I bring up the online forms on my terminal.”

“That’s okay. Do you mind if I listen to some tunes while you get started?” Erna asked as she pulled out her Everything, plugged in an earphone and began clicking its tiny buttons on the desk.

Six months later, Erna was sitting on the pool veranda outside a five-star resort at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. She had covered herself with sunscreen and just booted her laptop when a shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a tall, well-tanned man of about forty standing next to her chair.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” she said as she started the E and began accessing various accounts around the world.

“I’m Ted, by the way. Loading up some new tunes to your Ipod?”

“Well, I’m definitely loading something to somewhere,” she replied, hoping her tone might put him off.

Oh, well, he thought, she’s a little young anyway. This may be a waste of time. He took out his laptop and booted it up. “Might as well check my brokerage accounts,” he said, taking one last stab at impressing the cute young girl in the bikini. “It’s nice, being able to make money while you’re on vacation.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing. You mean you have stocks and stuff like that?” she turned to him flashing her best smile and rotating the dial on her Everything. “Maybe you could teach me some of that. Could you show me how it works?”

Mamma's Things

Mamma has always had a love for other people's possessions. When I was growing up, this always created a sense of puzzlement and wonder at our house. We’d be visiting at Aunt Cathy’s or our cousin’s house down in Coultree County. Mamma would admire a new piece of silver or some fine china statuette. A few days later, I would see the object of her desire in our house. One day, when I was old enough to notice, I asked her about the new addition.
“Mamma, isn’t that the serving spoon Aunt Cathy had last Sunday?”
Mamma would just sort of wave her hand dismissively. “She knew how much I loved that piece… Isn’t it lovely?” or “Wasn’t that a thoughtful gift?” and trail off without really saying anything.
Late at night, I could hear angry words behind closed doors. I couldn’t hear the words but I knew what Papa and Mamma were fussing about. Sometimes the item would reappear at the neighbor’s or relative’s house where Mamma first saw it. Sometimes it would disappear entirely, and it would be years before I knew what happened to it.
As I grew older, visits to other people’s houses grew more infrequent. I would ask Mamma why we didn’t go visit Aunt Cathy or Uncle Lee any more, and she’d just shake her head.
“Them sisters and brothers of mine done got too uppity. Think they’re too good to have the likes of us in their fancy homes. ” And that would end the subject.
Finally, we stopped going to anybody’s house anymore, and no one came to visit us either. I missed my cousins, and even the other kids in the neighborhood stopped coming around.
That’s about the time my Mamma started going shopping. She would catch the bus into town and spend hours at Kresge’s or Woolworth’s. She never came home with any bags or packages but the next day, I’d sometimes see some new trinket on the sideboard or the shelf in the front parlor.
Mamma and Papa really started going at it then. They’d be up late at night, shouting in the back bedroom. I’d hear Papa yelling and Mamma crying, then doors slamming. Sometimes Papa would leave and wouldn’t come home until the next night. Then I’d see Mamma wander through the house mumbling to herself or banging her fists against the side of her head.
I was older then and it didn’t scare me as much as it did when I was just a kid, but it still made for some long nights. I wanted to help and make the yelling go away, but I didn’t know what was wrong. I knew by then that Mamma was stealing, and it was wrong, but I wanted all the yelling to stop, and I didn’t want Mamma to hurt herself.
Then one day, Mamma went shopping and didn’t come home. It got late and started getting dark, and I did start getting scared, even though I was too old to be afraid. Papa finally got there and I told him Mamma didn’t get back from shopping. He looked upset but he wouldn’t say anything. He just heated up some dinner and called Mrs. Torrance next door to come keep an eye on me while he went out.
I told Papa that I was ten and didn’t need a baby-sitter and I wanted to go with him to find Mamma. We were arguing about it, when there came a knock at the door. Papa opened it and there was Deputy Miller from in town. He had come to speak at our school once the year before.
Papa went out on the porch and talked to the deputy for a bit. Their voices were low, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. A few minutes later, I heard the car drive away, then Mamma and Papa came back in. Mamma was crying, but Papa looked really mad. He walked her back to the bedroom and slammed the door, and then he came back and sat in the front parlor in the dark.
****
It’s been fourteen years since I was back in the old house on Greenbrier Place. When I came back into town to arrange for Papa’s funeral, I didn’t stay here, but got a room over at the new Days Inn by the Interstate. Now the funeral was over, and I had taken Mamma back to the home in Tyrone. Some folks called it a rest home and some called it an old folk’s home. When my Papa took my Mamma there when I was thirteen, they called it a sanitarium.
Mamma had been there ever since, and once I got old enough, Papa let me go visit. She’d always talk about coming home when she ‘got well enough’ but she never did. Sometimes I’d go talk to one of the doctors they had working on her and he’d just shake his head and say she wasn’t working on her ‘issues’ or ‘had a difficulty dealing with reality.’ I didn’t know what the hell all that meant, it just meant she wasn’t coming home.
The doctor or nurses would sometimes take me in her room while she was in the sunroom. They’d search and find a pen that belonged to one of the doctors or a book that another patient was missing. I used to confront Mamma on it, but she’d just wave her hand and say, “It was so nice of them,” or something like that and smile that old tired smile of hers.
One time when I went to visit, they had her strapped down in her bed. They had these brown leather cuffs that strapped around her wrists and ankles and kept her from getting up or moving around much. I asked Mamma why, and she just start cussing and thrashing, yelling at me like it was my fault. I ran out of the room and asked the nurses. They told me that Mamma had ‘tried to hurt herself again’ and ‘it was for her own good.’
As I got older, I’d stop by and visit her doctor before going to her room so I wouldn’t be surprised. She never got over wanting other people’s possessions, but I’d gotten used to that. It was when she was strapped down and ranting, or drugged to where she didn’t know who I was that I had a hard time. I was just glad she had behaved herself during the funeral.
Now I have to clean out the old house and get it ready to put up for sale. I’ve lived down in Charlotte ever since I got out of high school, working in the mills, and I had no use for the old place. There were a lot of memories there, but most of them weren’t good, and I just wanted it behind me.
I was in the attic when I found the old chest. It was a large Lane chest, made of oak on the outside, and lined with cedar on the inside. The rusted hinges squeaked when I opened it, and the smell of cedar was mixed with the musty smell of things left too long in one place.
There was Mrs. Torrance’s hand-made embroidered blanket and Aunt Cathy’s silver serving spoon. There was a set of brass bookends, and a small wooden carving I had seen at Uncle Lee’s. The chest was full of all manner of treasures that I had seen at some time in our house but had disappeared after one of Mamma and Papa’s fights. At the bottom lay a small penknife that my grandfather had given me when I was just a little boy.
I had always wondered what happened to that knife. I put it in my pocket and cried.

The Chain

The man on the dock was gagged and duct-taped to the chair he was sitting in. In addition, several loops of chain wrapped around him and the chair, disappearing into a coil of chain at his feet. A cinder block shackled to a length running out of the coil was sitting on the edge of the dock.

I sat on a bench at the edge of the dock, trying to keep warm and waiting for my quarry to wake up. It was the dead of winter and everything was quiet around the lake – all the summer homes locked up for the season. I had come looking for the man in the chair the day before, tracking him to this cabin on the shore of Carters Lake, about fifty miles north of Atlanta.

My mind drifted back to the day my client, Betty Austin, walked into my office on Mt. Vernon Rd.

“Are you Joe Powell?” she said tentatively as she stuck her head in my office door. I don’t have a receptionist, or anywhere to put one if I did. I lease a one-room office in a small office park in Dunwoody, just north of the city.

I thought of some clever quip, since my name is on the door and I was the only one around, but the woman looked so distraught, I decided to play it straight. “Yes, I’m Joe Powell, can I help you?”

“I hope so. I don’t know where else to go. I got your name from Mike Holst at the DeKalb County police department.”

Mike Holst worked missing persons for DCPD. He occasionally gave out my name to people when they wouldn’t or couldn’t help. The police wouldn’t even file a report until someone was missing at least forty-eight hours. If they were an adult, and there was no sign of foul play, the police could do little. “Please, sit down and tell me what I can do. Let’s start with your name”

“I’m sorry. My name is Betty Austin, and my husband is missing. I have a picture,” she said and laid a photo of a good-looking man in his forties on my desk. “His name is Mark, Mark Austin.”

I took out my pad and started taking notes. “I assume the police couldn’t help?”

“No. They took a report and said they would file it and order a lookout. Detective Holst said that without some evidence of a crime, they couldn’t do any more. They said he may have just taken off on his own and he would come back when he was ready. But Mark wouldn’t do that. He’s never done that.”

“How long have you two been married?”

“Only two years. We met on vacation in the Caymans. We got married here a few weeks later. We’ve hardly been apart since then, except when Mark goes away on business.”

“And you know he’s not away on business now?”

“No. He would have told me. He doesn’t just leave without telling me.”

“Okay. Tell me what happened.”

“He called me from his office three days ago, Friday morning. We were talking about how we would spend the weekend. He interrupted to tell me he had another call coming in that he had to take. That was the last time I heard from him.”

“Where does he work?”

“He works for himself as an independent investment counselor.”

“Could one of his clients called him away suddenly?”

“No. He still would have told me. He would have come home to pack. Besides, he hasn’t answered his cell phone. It’s been three days. I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look, but the police have a lot more manpower. If we can find a reason to, we’ll want to get them involved.”

I took some more information and filled out a standard contract. I arranged to meet her at her husband’s office in an hour. She left and I called Mike Holst.

“Mike, it’s Joe. I wanted to call and thank you for the referral.”

“And pump me for information.”

“And pump you for information. Did you guys look into this at all, or turn up anything interesting?”

“We checked out his office. Did a quick search of the airlines, hospitals, and other local police. We came up with nothing. His car’s gone. No reason to believe he didn’t just drive off somewhere. We’ve got a BOLO on the car, but there’s not much else we can do.”

The Be-On-the-Look-Out would most likely turn up something. If that went out to all metro police departments, it would cover eight counties and seven major interstates. Meanwhile, I drove over to Sandy Springs to meet Mrs. Austin.

She let me in with her key, disabled the alarm, and accompanied me inside. Mark Austin’s office was very similar to mine but with nicer furniture. It was a small one-room office with a waiting area in the corner. A massive oak desk took up the bulk of the floor space, which was almost clean except for a computer.

“See anything missing or out of place?” I asked her as I started the computer.

“No. Wait, yes, my picture. There was a picture of me in my wedding dress on his desk. It’s gone. He must have taken it don’t you think?”
I didn’t comment on that as I went to work searching his computer files. Fortunately, he didn’t have a password on his system. I guess he thought the lock on the door and security system were good enough. Most people’s passwords are something you can guess, or they write them down somewhere. At least I didn’t have to waste time trying to bypass one.

I was scrolling through the files created on February tenth, the day he disappeared. “What time was your last phone call with him?”

“About two in the afternoon,” she answered, “Did you find something?”

“Not yet. How about have a seat in the waiting area and let me go through this. It won’t take long.” As she turned to head over to the corner, I put my flash memory key into the USB port. I copied all the files from the last two days onto the key. I would have better luck working through them without the distraction. He saved the last file at one fifty-five. There was also a temporary file that he didn’t save stamped about fifteen minutes later. I took that, and then copied his calendar, email, and contact list for good measure.

I shut down the computer, and then spent a few minutes going through his desk drawers and file cabinets. Not much there – he obviously kept most records on his hard drive. I walked out with Mrs. Austin and waited while she locked up.

“Let me get started looking into this. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Either way, I’ll call you by the end of the week and give you a report.” I got a look that told me I would hear from her long before the end of the week. She went to her Volvo sedan, I got into my dusty Jeep Cherokee, and we parted ways.

I drove back to my office and booted up my computer. Inserting the memory key, I started looking at Mark Austin’s last files, beginning with the temporary file. Many computer programs create a temporary copy of a file while you are working on it. When you exit the program and save the file, the temporary file is deleted. If the computer crashes for some reason, the temp file is left behind so the file can be recovered. The fact that this file existed probably meant that Austin had turned his computer off in the middle of working on it, indicating he left in a hurry.

The file was a termination of services letter between Austin and someone named Al Bowden. There wasn’t a phone number, but there was an address off Fulton Industrial on the west side of town. I drove out there and found the address. It belonged to an old Tudor style house set in the trees, sheltered from the commercial area that surrounded it. I rang the bell and the door was answered by a very attractive woman in her forties.

“May I help you?”

“Yes. My name is Joe Powell and I’m looking for Al Bowden.”

“I’m Mrs. Bowden. May I ask what this is in reference to?”

“I’m a private investigator and I’m looking into the disappearance of Mark Austin. He apparently is a business associate of your husband. I’m just trying to get a line on what he was working on at the time of his disappearance.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t keep up much with my husband’s business.”

“Can you tell me what sort of business he is in?”

“Real estate development and speculation. Some stock trading. Mostly he’s in the business of making money.”

“Yeah, aren’t we all? Can you tell me where he is or how to contact him?”

“He’s out of town. He has a cell phone, but he hasn’t been answering it. I wouldn’t give you that number anyway unless he said it was okay.”

“Is that unusual? Him not answering his cell?”

“Not really. When he gets tied up in a deal, he’ll turn it off. He also visits some fairly remote areas, looking at land development. And we have a cabin up at Carters Lake that doesn’t get service, but he rarely goes up there without me. Not in the middle of winter.”

“Well, thanks for your time.” I handed her my card. “If you hear from him, could you ask him to give me a call?”

That might have been another dead end, but whether she was worried or not, there were still two men missing at the same time. I don’t believe in coincidence.

I called Mike Holst again from my cell phone on the way back to my office. He wasn’t in, so I left him my number. I was just pulling into my parking lot when he returned my call.

“I hope you’re calling me to report a crime. Otherwise, I’m busy.”

“Mike, thanks for calling me back. I was wondering what the chances were you could get me Mark Austin’s phone records for the day he went missing.”

“You’re breaking up, Joe. I thought you just asked me a very stupid question about something you know I can’t get without a court order.”

Oh well, I took a shot. I went into my office and got back on the computer. Scrolling back through the files I downloaded from Austin’s computer, I opened a bills folder and found a cell phone bill he had downloaded last month. Using that, I went online and got into his account.

I scrolled through the list of recent calls. There were none for any time after four o’clock on the day he disappeared. The last inbound call was at 2:17 from a 706 area code. The same number was his last outbound call at 4:02. 706 was a large area code covering most of North Georgia outside the Atlanta area. It was beginning to look like I might be going to Carters Lake. I decided to stop for the day and head home.

The next morning, there were four messages on my office phone. Three were from Betty Austin wanting to know if I had made any progress. The fourth was from Alicia Bowden. She sounded worried and asked that I please call her as soon as I got in. I called Mrs. Austin first and let her know that I was working the case, but hadn’t developed any leads yet. I assured her again that I would call her as soon as I had some news.

Next, I called Mrs. Bowden. She was frantic, but I finally got her calmed down enough to tell me what was going on. Her husband had called her the night before to tell her that he was in Chicago on business and would be gone for a few days. She said he sounded very nervous, almost scared, but he had finally assured her that everything was okay. He said he loved her and would be home Friday.

“So why do you think that there’s a problem?”

“He just didn’t sound right, but he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I couldn’t sleep all night worrying about it. This morning, I thought to check caller ID on the phone in the den – he was calling from our cabin. He’s not in Chicago. I have been calling the cabin all morning but nobody answers. I’m afraid something is terribly wrong, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What is the number for the cabin?”

She gave me the same number as on Mark Austin’s cell phone bill. I got directions for the cabin and headed into the North Georgia mountains.

Carters Lake is a 4,000-acre lake just south of the Chattahoochee National Forest. I got to the area around noon and went into the nearby town of Ellijay to find some lunch and a room for the night. I spent the afternoon finding the cabin and scouting the area. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but I didn’t think it was going to be good.

Late in the afternoon, I drove back to town and had some dinner. I went back to my room to change and grab my duffle bag. My bag contains an assortment of items I have found useful over the years, including binoculars, night-vision goggles, some rope, a Mag-Lite, a K-Bar knife, and my Browning 9mm pistol.

It was dusk as I pulled into the drive of a cabin three down from Bowden’s. From my scouting that afternoon, I knew that almost all of the cabins were empty. I went behind the cabin and down to the lakeshore following it around to the Bowden’s cabin. Behind the next cabin, I had to use my flashlight to circumvent a small construction site. Someone was building a dry-dock for a large boat out of cinder blocks. There was a block and tackle, and a large coil of chain resting on the path around the lake.

It was full dark as I approached the back of the cabin from the lake. I stopped as I heard a loud splash in the lake. I put on my NVGs and waited for my eyes to adjust to the pale green landscape. As I topped the rise where the cabin was located, I saw motion on the left side. I slipped behind a low hedge and waited. A large man wearing a sweat suit was raking the leaves on the dirt path that led around the cabin to under the back deck. A large wheelbarrow rested there with a rolled up rug lying in it. I had no idea why someone would be doing yard work at this time of night in the winter, so I crouched down and waited.

After the man finished raking back up to the house, he disappeared around the front. After a few minutes, lights came on in the cabin, so I took off the goggles. I went under the deck and climbed up a supporting post, hoisting myself onto the deck where I lay flat and looked in the sliding door.

The man I had seen on the path was at the kitchen sink scrubbing his hands with a brush and a bottle of bleach. The sweat suit had spatters of what looked like blood all over the front. He was not the man in the photo that Betty Austin had given me, so it wasn’t missing husband number one. I assumed it was Al Bowden, but it didn’t pay to assume in this business.

The man went to the laundry closet and stripped off the sweat suit, putting it and a large quantity of bleach into the washing machine and starting it. He then went to the bar; poured himself a tumbler of Wild Turkey, sat down in a chair in his shorts, and began to drink. I watched and waited while he continued to drink until he finally passed out. Then I went to work.

****

The man in the chair slowly came awake. When he became aware of his situation, he began to hyperventilate with fear.

“You need to calm down – you’ll be able to breathe easier. You only have to be afraid if you don’t tell me what I need to know, or lie to me. In those cases, you have to fear sinking to the bottom of the deepest lake in Georgia and staying there until that chair rots off your bones.”

The man looked wildly around him, trying to scream through the duct-tape. I walked over and slapped him once, hard. “When you calm down, I’ll remove the tape so we can talk.”

His breathing slowed down and got deeper as he tried to compose himself. When I thought he was ready, I ripped the tape from his face. “Who the hell…”

I slapped him again, and he shut up. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. If I can’t get the information I need from you, I don’t need you, and I kick that block into the water and walk away. There is no one around to hear you scream, or to hear the splash when you hit the water.”

After that, he became more cooperative.

“What is your name and what were you doing in that cabin?”

“That’s my cabin. My name is Al Bowden. I’m up here on vacation. My wife will be back any minute.”

I kicked the cinder block. It fell over and hung a few inches off the edge of the dock. Bowden’s eyes locked on it in fear.

“That’s one. The next lie and the block goes in the water. I’ll find out what I need with or without you. What were you doing at the cabin and where is Mark Austin.?”

I could see his mouth form the word ‘who’ as his eyes cut back to the block.

“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt him. We were just talking, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“Talking about what?”

“I’m about to close on some land next to I-75. They’re going to cut a new exit over by Dalton. The land will be worth ten times what it is now to developers. He’s doing the financial planning for the family that owns it now and was going to tell them. He was dropping me as a client – said it was a conflict of interest. I couldn’t let that deal slip away.”

“So how did you get him up here?”

“Called him on his cell. He said he was just typing up a termination letter to me. Then he was going to see his client. I talked him into coming by here first. I told him we could work out a compromise where everybody makes out. It wasn’t far out of his way.”

“So you got him up here, then what?”

“I tried to talk some sense into him. This deal was worth a hundred thousand – profit. Told him I’d split it with him, but once the people that owned the land knew about it, they wouldn’t need us any more. We had to move before the DOT started talking with landowners.”

“But he wouldn’t listen.”

“No. Who the hell does he think he is? He just shook his head and turned away. I grabbed an old conch shell of the table and whacked him in the back of the head. I didn’t mean to hurt him – I just wanted him to stop and listen.”

“And where is he now?”

“In the crawlspace under a tarp. I threw the shell into the lake last night and cleaned up the cabin. I was trying to figure out what to do with the body last night. I don’t know what happened after that.

“After that, you passed out. I loaded you into the wheelbarrow that held your bloody rug and hauled you down here. I borrowed some equipment from next door and waited until morning.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“First, I want to thank you, Al, you’ve been very cooperative. I’m just going to leave you now with one thought.”

With that, I stood and walked over to the edge of the dock. Looking back at him, I kicked the cinder block into the water and walked away as it started dragging the chain into the lake.

His screams grew hysterical as I walked up the path from the dock to the lot where I had parked my car. He rocked over and knocked his chair over, hoping to stop the chain’s progress. The screams drowned out the sound of the chain hitting the water, but I turned and watched as the last of the links slid off the pier into the lake. He screamed on for a few more minutes before he realized the splashing had stopped and he was still on the dock. He finally looked around and saw that the chain attached to his chair ended a few feet away where the coil had rested earlier.

I got in my car and drove back to his cabin. Someone would find him eventually. I had some very unsettling phone calls to make.

The Old Victorian

The first time she entered this room seven years ago came flooding back. She had just turned sixteen. She had just met her uncle for the first time. She had just buried her mother and father.

“Welcome to your new home, child,” Uncle Paul said, “Put your bags down and come have a seat. If you are going to be living in my house, you need to understand the rules.”

No one had called her ‘child’ in a long time, and she had no intention of following any rules.

“Just tell me where my room is. I’m going out.”

She was shocked by the speed with which he crossed the room, and even more so when the back of his hand struck her face.

“You will do as your told, young lady. Despite the fact that you are my namesake, I never intended being a parent at this stage of my life. However, your parents named me as legal guardian and I intend to honor their wishes. As you will honor mine. Now sit. You may go to your room when you are dismissed.”

She walked toward the old Queen Anne sofa and sat, her mind in a haze. Paula’s uncle towered over her, the hand an unspoken threat.

“The first rule of course, is that you will always obey me without question. You will serve yourself breakfast before school, and return home promptly afterwards and attend to your studies…”

His voice was reduced to a buzz in Paula’s brain has the rules droned on. The only thought in her mind was how did she get into this situation and how was she going to get out of it. Paula didn’t get along great with her parents, but it was normal stuff about homework and boys. They had never hit her.
The days and weeks passed in a blur, the only constant was her misery and isolation. She wasn’t allowed out with her friends, and she was afraid to have them visit her. One day, her uncle picked her up after school.

“We’re going to pay a visit to my lawyer. Your parents made me your guardian, but we need to tidy up some loose ends. Your parents left you quite a sum in trust and you need a will. I will become your heir and you will be mine.”

As she entered the law offices of Coben, Koontz, & King, her mind wrestled with this new information. She didn’t want him to be her heir, but she had no one else, and besides, she was afraid of arguing with him.

During the discussion with her uncle’s creepy lawyer, Mr. King, she discovered something about her parent’s death that had been kept from her before. She knew they died in a traffic accident on the coastal highway, but until now, she didn’t know that an unknown driver had run them off the road.

After that, she noticed a change in his treatment toward her. He acted kinder, but behind the act was a predatory malevolence. He would cook her meals, and take her on long drives along the coast. At sunset, he would frequently take her on walks along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific.

It was on one of these walks that she learned the truth about her uncle. As he turned to point out a cypress tree clinging to the cliff’s face, he bumped into her forcing her toward the abyss. Only her teenage agility saved her as she twisted and clung to the cliff’s edge. Her uncle reached and pulled her up, apologizing, but he had a look that was more regret than distress.

From that moment forward, she exercised extreme caution at all times. She had discovered his true nature and intent, and suspected the truth about her parent’s ‘accident’. She kept her distance on their walks and was very careful about what and when she ate. On her eighteenth birthday, she packed her belongings and walked out of that house for what she thought was the last time.

Now as she looked around the musty living room once again she thought, “I outlived you, you bastard.”

EndGame

"That was the best game we've ever had!" said Grandmaster Bloodworth.
The three members of the Inner Circle sat around the private club off 82nd on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Anthony Bloodworth wasn’t the oldest member, but with his love of Cohibas and Scotch, he had aged harder than his contemporaries. He wasn’t fat, but it didn’t take a doctor to tell his blood pressure was through the roof, and his hands showed the beginnings of palsy.
“It was certainly one of the fastest,” agreed Harry Timms.
Timms, one of the younger members in his mid fifties was in very good shape for his age. He was also ambitious and had his eye on the Grandmaster position for some time.
“When will Mrs. Tuggle be indicted?” asked Glenn Morrow.

Glenn, the oldest member at seventy-four, was the newest component of the Inner Circle, having replaced Mathew Seaton who had passed on a few months prior.
“The Grand Jury meets on Friday,” replied Bloodworth.
“Any chance she won’t be indicted?” asked Morrow.
“None,” said Timms, “I was there. The police had to turn witnesses away they had so many. For New York City, it was a very involved crowd.”
“All right, open the doors and let the rest of the membership in,” said Bloodworth moving the meeting along.
Harry Timms rose and opened the double doors into the roomy lounge area allowing the other twenty-one members into the meeting room. They all served themselves drinks at the bar, some lighting up cigars, as they positioned themselves around the room. There was a definite but unspoken hierarchy to their grouping.
“I call this meeting of the Diogenes Club to order,” Bloodworth said. “First order of business. Do we have any viable candidates for the open position? With Seaton’s passing and Glenn’s ascension, we need to fill a position to keep our membership at twenty-five.”
A few members passed folders to Glenn Morrow, who would lead the vetting process. The pool for possible members was small but specific. One had merely to have been falsely accused, and then acquitted of the charge of murder.
“Thank you,” Bloodworth continued, “As most of you know, the current game has come to a satisfactory conclusion. At eight forty-eight this morning, Douglas Tuggle was pushed into the path of an oncoming subway train by his wife in front of dozens of witnesses. In addition to Harry Timms, who had been following Mr. Tuggle, Brian Rowe was there in his role tailing Mrs. Tuggle. Rowe, were you paying enough attention to add any insight to our little endgame?”
“I always pay attention Mr. Bloodworth; my reports are never less than complete and accurate. You know this, which is why you gave me the assignment in the first place. I had just reached the bottom of the stairs and was passing through the turnstiles when Mrs. Tuggle leaped forward, screamed ‘you bastard’ and shoved Mr. Tuggle onto the tracks.”
“What was the precipitating factor?” another member, Earl Heinz, called from the bar.
“The precipitating factor?” cried Bloodworth, “We’re the damned precipitating factor, you idiot. We’ve been working this one for two weeks.”
“That’s what I mean,” defended Heinz, “Two weeks. It normally takes months to reach endgame.”
“I think I can answer that,” interrupted Timms, “Mr. Tuggle was standing there reading his paper when Mrs. Tuggle came through the turnstiles. A young woman, who was not part of the game walked over and asked him the time. Mrs. Tuggle witnessed the encounter and that’s when she sprang forward. If it hadn’t been for someone’s intervention, she would have pushed the woman into the tracks also.”
“It wasn’t you, was it Rowe?” bellowed Bloodworth.
“No sir, “said Rowe, “I’ve been a member for fourteen years and know the rules as well as anyone. We can do anything to set the game in motion, but can never interfere with the outcome.”
“Fine,” said Bloodworth, “everyone will please have their reports filed by tomorrow. On to the next game. What do we have lined up?”
“The target is Jacob Furman,” Harry Timms said, rising from his club chair and opening a folder. “Fifty-three years old and lead sales rep for a mid-town electronics firm.”
“Who is our weapon,” asked Morrow, “jealous wife, impatient heir?”
“No,” continued Timms, “we have several resentful co-workers to choose from. Or we can plant the seed in all of them and let them sort it out. It seems our Mister Furman has reaped the benefits of lead rep for years resting on his laurels and riding on the coattails of others. His client list consists of all of the firm’s large regular customers. He also gets credit for all cold and online customers. The rest of the sales team has to fight for new clients while Furman does nothing to earn his huge commissions.”
“Sounds good,” said the Grandmaster, “let’s push all the reps and see what develops. Since the last game ended so quickly, I think we can take the time to let this one ferment for a bit. Timms, you take the target again. Assign members to the potential weapons. Try to find Rowe something he can’t screw up. This meeting is adjourned.”
The membership rose and closed the meeting in the traditional way, "Strike me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence,” quoting the club’s ancient Greek namesake.
Bloodworth rose and headed to the bar, the cloud from his Cuban cigar following him across the room. Rowe got up and stormed out to the lounge, stopping at the member’s bar to refill his drink.
Harry Timms came up and sat next to him a few minutes later. “Don’t take it personal Brian. You know he’s a blowhard. I’m assigning you the lead weapon again. We all know you get the job done.”
“Then why does that ass keep riding me like that. I’ve brought the weapon to the target successfully in almost every case. I should have made The Circle before that old fossil Morrow. I’ve been a member almost as long and have produced many more endgames.”
”Your time will come, Brian, trust me. I can guarantee you, if I make Grandmaster, you will be in the Circle. Now let’s discuss the details of this game. I want you to make first contact as soon as possible.”
Harry and Brian worked late into the night discussing strategies and variations. As they both knew, once you contacted the weapon, the game could go in any direction. That is why all twenty-five members would frequently be involved in a single game, often independently. Seeds must be planted and nurtured, coincidences engineered, suspicions placed, jealousies encouraged. Most of all, unseen events had to be dealt with. Most of the time they had a negative effect on the game. Others, like with the Tuggles, can move the game along quite nicely.
It was almost a week later that Brian watched his mark walk into the Pig & Whistle on Third. He had been following his assignment since the day after the meeting, but this was the first opportunity he had to approach. He waited for a few minutes, and then followed inside.
His weapon, Ryan Waltz, was seated at the far end of the long oak bar on the left. The last seat next to his, was empty. Brian gathered his thoughts, then stormed down and sat on the high stool.
“Son of a bitch!” Brian said and slammed his valise on the bar next to him. The bartender was walking up with a draft beer for Waltz. “Give me a beer and a shot. Make it scotch and whatever he’s drinking. And a shot for him too.”
Waltz looked over, a bit uneasy, and said, “That’s okay. I’ll just stick with beer.”
“Hell, let me buy you a drink. I just got fired and I’m celebrating.”
“You don’t much look like you’re celebrating, but okay. I’ll take a shot of bourbon,” he told the bartender. “Ryan Waltz is my name,” he said as he held out a hand.
“Willie Norvell,” Brian said, shaking his hand. “I finally got the nerve up today to tell my boss what I think of him and he fired me, just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Well, screw him. I’ve been bringing all the business in anyway while he gets all the credit. I’ll find a company that appreciates my effort. Say, you’re company isn’t hiring, is it?”

“No, and if it was, you wouldn’t want to work there. I’m in the same boat. The lead rep gets all the cushy clients that are going to buy our stuff anyway and rakes in all the commissions. The rest of us have to bust our humps dragging in new customers off the streets just to make quota. And once we do land a good one, he steals them away.”
“Man, isn’t that just like them?” Brian said, motioning the bartender for another round. “Just once, I’d like to those jerks get what’s coming to them.”
For the rest of happy hour, Brian fueled Waltz’s anger and frustration with alcohol and discourse. Unknown to Waltz, but well known to Brian, half a dozen other members were scattered around the city working some stage of the game. Many worked behind the scenes, staging phone calls, getting phony documents delivered, forcing chance encounters. The game would take months of planning and coordinated effort. But the end was usually the same. The last time a game had ended with the target still alive was seven years ago. It was Rowe who had misread the situation that caused the game to abort at the last minute, and Bloodworth had never let him forget it. It marred the Grandmaster’s perfect record.
Brian and Waltz left the pub as the city was getting dark, going their separate ways. As Brian got to the corner of Fifty-Fifth and turned west, he saw Harry Timms leaning against a street lamp.
“Harry, what the hell are you doing here,” Brian said, the alcohol making him bold.
“Well, Brian, Anthony wanted me to come down and make sure you were on your mark.”
“That bastard. Is he checking up on anyone else, or just me?”
“Calm down, Brian. You know how he is. He wants every game to run its course. He worries you’ll let another one slip through.”
“That was seven damned years ago! The little bastard was about ready to kill his old man. No one knew about the trust fund except the father and his lawyer. It wasn’t in any of the research.”
“And everyone knows that. Still, Bloodworth had a perfect record and now he doesn’t. He’s pissed and he’s taking it out on you. I’ll talk to him again. I’m meeting him tomorrow night on top of 30 Rockefeller Center for a progress report. He knows the maitre d’ d at the Rainbow Room and he’s going to get us out on the observation deck before it re-opens next month. If you can move your mark any closer to action by then, I’ll pass that along.”
“Thanks, Harry, you’re a friend. If it weren’t for a shot at the Inner Circle, I think I’d get out of this club.”
“Don’t say that, not even to me. You know membership is irrevocable. No one leaves the Diogenes Club alive. Don’t be such a cynic. One day I’ll be Grandmaster and Morrow won’t live forever. Think about whom we want in the Inner Circle with us. Now go home and get some rest. Work out how you can move your mark closer to endgame tomorrow.”
They parted company and Brian headed down Fifty-Fifth to his six-story walkup near the Empire State building, where he rented a tiny efficiency. As he turned left onto Fifth, he began to consider a plan that would see him in the Circle sooner than expected.
The next afternoon, at his regular job as a courier for a stockbroker, he called The Rainbow Room and asked for the maitre d’. “This is Harry Timms; I need to confirm my reservation with Anthony Bloodworth tonight.”
“Certainly Mr. Timms, but Mr. Bloodworth doesn’t have a reservation. I am simply to let him out onto the observation deck at ten for his meeting with you. Will the two of you need a table?”
“No, that’s alright. I wasn’t sure what Anthony had in mind. I’ll see you at ten. Goodbye.”
Brian hung up and got back to work, polishing his own endgame in the process.
After work, Brian went home, showered, and changed into a fresh courier uniform. He poured himself a small tumbler of scotch to fortify himself. After downing it, he left his building and headed up Fifth toward Rockefeller Center.
He entered the Lower Plaza off Forty-Eighth and descended into the catacombs where he blended into the after-work crowd heading for train stations and window-shopping. He went to Kinko’s and purchased a large manila envelope, a package of paper, and a felt tip pen. He sat at one of the tables in the food court and assembled his package.
At ten o’clock, he followed the corridor over to NBC studios and caught an elevator full of tourists heading up. He pushed the button for sixty-eight and waited while the old elevator slowly rose, losing most of the passengers on the lower floors. As the doors opened on the sixty-eighth, he rushed over to the entrance to the Rainbow Room and up to the busy maitre d’.
“I have an urgent package for Mr. Bloodworth. It is essential he get this for his meeting with Mr. Timms.”
The maitre d’ pointed toward the double doors leading to a short flight of steps. “They are outside. I can’t leave my station right now. No one else is out there. Go on up.”
Brian walked up the stairs and across the lobby to the doors leading outside. The wind was howling as he opened the doors and stepped out into the night. He crept around first one side then the other looking for Bloodworth and Timms. He finally found them at the back corner looking south toward the Empire State building. He had to slip up close behind them before he could hear their words.
“I think it’s time we let Rowe off the hook, don’t you?” asked Bloodworth.
Brian leaned closer, not sure he had heard correctly.
“I don’t know Tony,” Harry said, “I’ve had to keep him on a tight leash to prevent another screw-up. To be honest, I’m getting tired of following him around cleaning up his messes. If I hadn’t stepped in on that last game, I’m not sure it would have ended satisfactorily.”
“Well, you know him best. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have placed him in the Inner Circle instead of that idiot Morrow. You saved us from a crucial mistake there. We owe you our gratitude. I can guarantee you get to pick the next member in the Circle.” Bloodworth took two of his Cuban Cohiba’s out of a breast pocket. He cut and lit his and then lit one for Harry, his hands shaking a bit.
“Thanks, Tony, I appreciate that,” Harry said, puffing on the cigar and looking off into the dark space where the World Trade Towers used to light up the horizon.
Brian could hardly believe what he was hearing. He came up here to secure a spot for himself in the Inner Circle, and make his 'friend' Grandmaster. Now he discovers that bastard has been stabbing him in the back. His anger reached the boiling point and he rushed forward. Grabbing Harry by his ankles, he lifted and pivoted him over the low iron railing that was the only thing between him and the street. The wind whipped away the scream as he plummeted to the sidewalk on Forty-Ninth Street below.
Anthony Bloodworth calmly turned toward him and took another puff on his cigar as Rowe turned with fists clinched. He was about to begin a verbal and physical assault on the Grandmaster when Bloodworth raised his hand and clapped him on the shoulder.
“By God, I didn’t think you had the stones, Rowe."
“What?”
“That snake Timms has been playing politics, manipulating members, and positioning for my spot. We had to end it. It’s been a long time since we played a double-header,” he chuckled as he peered over the side.
“But the maitre d’, he knows I came out here.”
“Yes, you’ll meet our newest member at the next regular meeting. Meanwhile, we need to get out of here before the police show up. Let’s go to the club. A special meeting of the Inner Circle is about to take place.”

“But I’m not in the Circle,” Rowe stammered.
“You are now, my boy,” Bloodworth replied, “we just had a vacancy open up.” He chuckled again. “How’s your current game going? Making any progress?” he asked as he put his arm around Brian Rowe’s shoulder and they made their way back to the elevator.

One Day

My alarm woke me at 6 a.m. I went out for a run, showered, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and had some breakfast. It was a day like any other, except today I was going to watch someone die.

I make my living as a private investigator, skip tracing and some divorce work, like any detective outside of television. I also do some investigating for local law firms, checking out witnesses, following up on alibis, that sort of thing.

Two months ago, the secretary for William Reader of Packard, Reader, and Everhart called my office number at nine a.m. My office number is my cell phone since I don’t have a regular phone. I don’t have an office either.

“Hello, you have reached the office of Vincent Diamond. Mr. Diamond is away from the phone right now but…“

Cut it out, Vince. I know you’re there,” Martha interrupted.

Martha Braun had been Bill Reader’s secretary since before he started using me, and knew most of my crap.

“Hi, Martha. Are you calling me about that two grand you guys owe me?”

“We don’t owe you any money, Vince; you still owe us two hours work from the Burdett case. Bill wants you in his office ASAFP. He’s got a pro bono case he needs some help on in a hurry.”

“Sorry, I don’t speak Latin. Does that mean my normal fee?”

“Yeah, yeah, just get down here. I have more important things to do than banter with you,” she hung up.

Martha likes me pretty well, but P, R, and E is a prestigous law firm in Decatur and she doesn’t have much time to waste on a freelancer like me.

It was a sunny, late October day, so I hopped on my motorcycle and drove the five miles from my home in Little Five Points to Bill’s office on the square in Decatur, a medium-size city on the outskirts of Atlanta. I parked outside the courthouse and cut across the square to his building. I took the stairs up and was in Bill’s waiting room by 9:30. After a short wait, Martha showed me in.

“Thanks for coming in,” Bill said as I took a chair.

“Hi Bill, what’s up?”

“We’ve taken on a pro bono death penalty appeal. The guy’s on death row at Atlanta for murder and is scheduled for the lethal injection in 60 days unless we can turn it around. He’s been on death row for seven years while the appeals have gone from one firm to another. He was found guilty of murdering a prostitute outside a hotel on Stewart Avenue. The accused, Lonnie Quail, claimed he had an alibi, but it didn’t hold up in court, and he still insists he’s innocent.”

“Don’t they all?”

“True, but irrelevant. We’ve got one last run at the Eleventh Circuit Court here, followed by the Supreme Court. If that doesn’t work, we’re left with pleading with the Governor for clemency. I need you to investigate his original lawyer and some of the witnesses. We need to find some level of incompetence or a witness that committed perjury.”

“What about the murder itself or the alibi. Wouldn’t it be easier to find another suspect or shore up his alibi?”

“No. At this point, it doesn’t matter if he actually committed the crime or not. He…”

“Doesn’t matter if he’s innocent?”

“According to the law, he received a fair trial and was found guilty by the jury. Proving he’s innocent now may not be enough to overturn that. Our best bet is to prove he didn’t get a fair trial in the first place.”

After going over the direction Bill needed me to take along with a list of witnesses and the defense lawyer’s name, I left with a thick folder and a retainer check. I don’t do pro bono.

My first stop was the office of Clinton Bolan, esq. He had a seedy office in a bad part of town off Lakewood Freeway on the south side. He talked to me around a meatball sub dripping tomato sauce on his cheap suit.

“You’re here about the Quail case? Well, you’re about the ninth person in the last five years, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. He’s guilty as hell and no lawyer in the world could have gotten a different verdict.”

“How did he come to be charged to begin with?”

“He fit the description of a man seen fleeing the parking lot right after the murder. He was picked up walking down Sylvan Road about four o’clock the next morning. A witness picked him out of a line up and that was it.”

“Wasn’t there something about an alibi?”

“Yeah, he says he was with his brother the whole time, but the DA got the brother on the stand and shoots the story full of holes. The jury didn’t buy it, and now he’s on death row. All the appeal lawyers have sent someone like you in here to try to drum up an incompetence case. Well, I’m no Johnny Cochran, but I have a good record, and I’m telling you, I didn’t stand a chance with this defendant.”

“Did you get the brother on redirect?”

“Yes, but the damage was done.”

“What did Lonnie say about his alibi after that?”

“Nothing. He shut up and wouldn’t say anything, except ‘I didn’t do it’. I told him, that wasn’t going to help; we have to fix this or you are going to be found guilty. He just stared at the wall and shook his head.”

I spent a while longer with Bolan going over the trial notes. I sure as hell wouldn’t want him at my table if I got in a jam, but I couldn’t find anything glaring he might have done that would create grounds for appeal. I’d have to let Bill run with that one.

I was supposed to leave the alibi alone and work on the prosecution witnesses, but I couldn’t just drop it. Something about the alibi didn’t ring true, and I needed to know what. Innocent or guilty may not matter to the Appellate Courts, but it mattered to me. Besides, I rarely did what I was supposed to do anyway.

Lonnie’s brother, Rodney still lived in what was their parent’s house off Bankhead highway on the west side of Atlanta. This was on an old wide residential lane flanked by massive oak trees and houses built early in the last century. I parked my bike out front and walked up the broken concrete drive to the steps leading up to a wide front porch running the width of the house.

The front door was open, but the screen door was shut and latched. Cooking smells escaped through the screen, and I realized it was past lunch and I hadn’t eaten since early morning. I knocked on the screen and a black man emerged from the kitchen in the back wiping his hands on a towel. He looked to be in his thirties with a large belly extending over his work pants.

“Can I help you?” he said as he reached the front room.

“Rodney Quail?”

“Yeah, I’m Rodney, what you want?”

“My name’s Vince Diamond and I’m working on the appeals case for your brother.”

“Well, come on in, but I don’t know what I can tell you I ain’t told them other folks,” he said as he unlatched the screen.

We walked into a large living room with an old bricked up fireplace in the corner. What looked like a bedroom was off to the side. Behind the living rooms was an open space into a dining room, and the kitchen behind that. The walls and ceiling were cracked plaster and the floors were hardwood that looked, and probably were, a hundred years old.

“Nice house,” I said, “it looks solid. Have you always lived here?”

“Cept for a couple of years when I stayed with my girl. We broke up after Lonnie went to jail, and I lived here ever since.”

He sat on a sofa under the front window and I took an old high back chair across from it.

“How can I help you? I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I sure would like to see him get off, but there ain’t much I can tell you.”

“What about the alibi. During the trial, you testified he was with you at the time of the murder, but on cross, they tore your story apart. Was he with you or not?”

Rodney looked at the floor for a minute shaking his head. “He begged me to help him out. Came to me and swore he ain’t killed nobody. Said he was with somebody, but they couldn’t help him and he needed me to stand up for him. He’s my brother; what was I supposed to do? We got together and came up with a story. Practiced it real good too. But when that district attorney got a hold of it, he just tore me a new one. I tried; I just couldn’t do him no good.”

“Did he ever say who he was with that night?”

“No. Wouldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t tell nobody. Said he couldn’t say. I figure it got to be some woman. He always getting in trouble with the ladies, but I couldn’t shake it out of him.”

When I left there, I called up Bill and told him I wanted to get in to see Lonnie. He said he’d arrange it and would have me on the list by the time I got over there. The Atlanta Pen was about ten miles to the east through some of the rougher parts of Atlanta.

I parked my bike in the visitor’s lot outside the prison that once housed Al Capone. It’s a massive structure built out of concrete and surrounded by high chain link fences topped by razor wire. It was, as all such structures are, foreboding. Even though it was a few miles from downtown, very few locals had ever seen it. If you weren’t going there, you didn’t go there.

I had been here once or twice on other cases, so I knew the drill and got through security with a minimum delay. Since Lonnie was on death row, the visitation procedure was a little different than I was used to. We sat across a Plexiglas divider with holes drilled in it. Since I wasn’t his lawyer, and this wasn’t privileged, guards were posted on both sides of the divider. I wasn’t sure why I was being guarded.

“Who you and what you won’t?”

A fair question. I wasn’t sure myself. “My name’s Vincent and I’m working for your lawyer. I need to ask you a few questions”

“Man, I done answered all them questions a hunnert times. Ain’t done no good so far.”

“Well, Lonnie, we’re running out of time. Your lawyers are trying to come up with a good reason to get your execution commuted or stayed, and we need some information.”

“Hey, I got nothing better to do. I just don’t know what else I can tell you.”

“I talked to your brother, and…”

“How’s Rodney? How come he ain’t come to see me?”

“Rodney’s fine. I don’t know why he hasn’t visited. He told me about your alibi and you not wanting to tell anybody who you were with at the time of the murder.”

“I was with Rodney! I done told them that.”

“Lonnie, Rodney already told me you two cooked up that story. He also told me you were with somebody else, but wouldn’t say who.”

Lonnie just stared at the glass like he was looking at his own reflection, or looking through me. “I ain’t got nothing to say on that then.”

“Your lawyer hired me to try and find some reason to appeal your death sentence. If I don’t come up with something soon, and I mean like now, you are going to die in 60 days. You have to help yourself here, Lonnie. Tell me who you were with and let me try and help you.”

He just stared and shook his head again. A tear started forming in one eye. I thought he wasn’t going to say anything else. Finally, in a voice almost too low for me to hear through the holes, he said, “He’s my brother, man.”

“Lonnie, look, we know you weren’t with your brother, so just…”

“No, damn it, I mean… shit” He didn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes, but I could tell he was ready to talk. “I was with my brother’s woman.”

“Your brother’s girlfriend?” I asked. “The one he said he broke up with after you got arrested? That’s your alibi?”

“Yeah. We been seeing each other for a while then, sneaking off when Rodney was working at the plant. She came to see me right after I got locked up; I was still in county then. She said she couldn’t stand to be around him no more after what happened. Said she was going to come up with some reason to break it off with him. She wouldn’t come see no more neither, but she begged me not to tell Rodney. Shoot, I didn’t care what that ho wanted, but I couldn’t hurt my brother that way. I couldn’t say what happened.”

“What’s her name, Lonnie? We’ve got to get her to come forward.”

“NO! I ain’t going to do that to my brother. We been best friends since he was born. It’d kill him if he found out I was stepping out with his girl.”

“It’s all we have to try and save your life, Lonnie. You have to give her up.”

He sat again and stared at the glass. Finally, he raised his eyes and met mine with a jailhouse stare. “You listen to me, mister detective. I been in here five years now, and I done made peace with myself. I know I’m going to die soon, and I’m cool with that. But I ain’t going to step on my brother to save myself. I ain’t going to do it. Them lawyers working for me, they got to do what I say. I done checked up on that. They can’t go after her and that’s all I got to say on it. You tell them I ‘preciate all they done for me, and if they can get me off some other way, that be fine. But we ain’t going to go that way.”

I stared right back. I’ve been intimidated by the best and he wasn’t going to now. After a couple of minutes of this pissing contest, I could tell that door was closed and bolted. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have to. He hadn’t changed his mind after five years on death row, and he wasn’t going to change it now just because Vince Diamond was sitting across the divider from him. I finally nodded my head, and his eyes softened a bit. The sadness that I had first seen creeping back in.

We talked a little more about that night and the trial, but I didn’t get anything useful out of it. I left there and got on my motorcycle. I’ve had that bike now for about ten years, and besides a long run, there are few better ways to clear your mind. Since I was on that side of town, I continued out east of the city, dodging the interstates until I was well out into the country. I wandered aimlessly for several hours trying to come to grips with a man that would rather die than hurt his brother. I found my respect for him growing in equal proportion to my certainty that we weren’t going to be able to save him.

Finally, around dark, I found myself riding back through the circus that is Little Five Points back to my home. The area has always attracted a diverse crowd, going back to the beatniks, then the hippies, followed by a mix of new wave, goth, skinheads, bikers, yuppies, and runaways. Add a liberal sprinkling of plain old homeless, and a trip down Euclid Avenue was always a visual trick or treat.

I got to my loft over an old movie theatre, now used for local productions, poetry readings, and the occasional open mike. My ‘office’ was actually one of the two old projection booths, and if I wanted, I could pull back the curtain and watch the madness below.

Tonight, I just didn’t have the heart for it. I checked voice mail on my cell phone – seven messages from Bill Reader. No surprise there. I didn’t have anything I wanted to say to him yet. Partly because I hadn’t followed his directives, and partly because I didn’t know how much I was going to tell him.

I went into the other projection booth, which housed my gym and worked out on the heavy bag until I couldn’t lift my arms anymore. Then I went into the main part of the loft, which doubled as a living room and bedroom. I finished stripping out of my clothes and collapsed on the bed.

The next morning, my head, arms, and back ached, so I decided to forego the motorcycle. I walked down to the street and unlocked one of my other choices of transportation, a 1963 Dodge. It’s a butt-ugly car with a push-button transmission, but it runs, and fits the neighborhood as well as my bike. My other car is a 1990 Mercedes 400E I keep in a parking garage a few blocks away. Both the car and the parking spot were in lieu of payments for services rendered. I usually prefer cash, but will occasionally barter, especially when the alternative appears to be not being paid at all.

First thing, I went to see Bill to file my report. Once a week, I’ll file a written report with as much detail as I can, but I like to give verbal reports more often, especially on a time-sensitive case like this one.

“What were you able to find out yesterday, Vince?”

“Not much,” I said, and proceeded to give him a run down of the conversation with the lawyer and Lonnie’s brother.

“How about Lonnie? Why did you go see him? Find anything new there?”

I hesitated a few seconds longer than I should have and said, “I just wanted to meet the man, get a feel for him. You know I have a pretty good bullshit meter, and I needed to hear his side of things.”

“Well, anything we can use?”

I glanced past him out his window and looked at the old county courthouse across the courtyard. Modern courthouses look like banks or office buildings, but most people, when they think of a courthouse, see something like this. It’s a neo-classic stone edifice with huge marble and terrazzo interiors.

“Vince?” Bill brought me back inside.

“Sorry, I was just going over the interview in my head. No, he didn’t give me anything that we didn’t already know.”

“Well, this isn’t much of a report; you could have handled this over the phone.” I didn’t tell him that I didn’t have any idea what I was going to say, until I said it.

“Okay, here’s what I need you to do,” he continued, “Go down the list of prosecution witnesses, and hit each one of them. Make them go through their story or anything else they remember. Interview them with that famous bullshit meter of yours wide open. Keep going back to the lawyer, and interview Lonnie as you need to. We need to find someone whose testimony we can break. Then we need to prove that the defense or the prosecution knew or should have known about it. We have to prove that he did not, in fact, receive a fair trial. If we fail to do that, Lonnie is going to get the needle.

The next few weeks were a blur of images. First, I had to find all the witnesses. Some, like the first officer on the scene and the medical examiner were easy. Others, such as the ‘eye-witness’ were a little tougher. After each witness, I would go back and talk to Bolan to see if everyone’s memory matched up. As often as I could, I would swing by and talk to Peter Ballenger, the DA. He wasn’t much help, but I had to keep chipping away, hoping to find a crack.

Every few days, I would go out to the Atlanta Pen and visit Lonnie. I would talk to him about the witnesses, and the trial; sometimes we would just talk about what life was like for him inside. He even asked about my life and my job, trying to get a glimpse of the outside world. The one thing we never talked about again was his brother’s girlfriend.

The closer it got, the less hope I had for helping Lonnie Quail. I had long since burned up the retainer and hadn’t asked Bill for any more. Despite Martha’s comment about me owing them hours, Bill and I both knew we frequently went the extra mile for the other, and the balance was kept in a sort of mental ledger. More often than not, the debt was squared with a steak dinner, or a Braves game.

With about two weeks to go, Bill told me they were preparing to go to the Eleventh Circuit with what they had, which wasn’t much. They had to do that pro forma before they could get a date in front of the Supreme Court. One legal clerk was already petitioning the Governor for clemency – the last hope for the condemned.

I went to visit Lonnie one last time. “I won’t be back again. The lawyers are going with what they got. Is there anything else you want to say to me?” I asked. We both knew what I meant.

He stared at me long and hard for a bit. I could see the range of emotions going through his mind, reflected in his eyes. “Just one thing, Vince.” I waited. “They say I can have two people come and watch me go out. All I got’s my brother. Would you bring him? He ain’t got no car.”

I tried to get rid of the lump in my throat, but before I could say anything, he continued.

“I’d like you to be there too. You been a friend. I think you know why.”

I finally croaked out that I would be happy to bring his brother and proud to be there.

For me, the last day of Lonnie Quail’s life passed in a haze. I went through the motions of a normal day, but everything seemed shadowy and distant. At the end of the day, I went home and showered again. I shaved – something I normally only did only once or twice a week. I changed into my best suit, a charcoal grey pinstripe, a comfortable pair of Bruno Magli loafers, and a Hugo Boss dress shirt.

I drove the Dodge over to the parking garage and picked up the Mercedes. I knew it was a dicey proposition driving my 400E through some of the neighborhoods we had to pass through that night, and I wouldn’t get back home until well after midnight. I didn’t much care about all that, Lonnie had earned my respect, and I intended to show it.

I picked up Rodney about ten and we drove to a diner down in the Cabbagetown area of east Atlanta. Neither of us felt much like eating, but we pushed some food around our plates and downed a lot of bad coffee. Around 11:30, we took the last leg of our journey to the Atlanta Pen. There were a couple of groups across the street cordoned off and separated by Atlanta Police. One group protesting the death penalty and holding a candlelight vigil, and the other carrying signs proclaiming victims rights and capital punishment.

I’ve been on both sides of that argument at one time or another and realized that until it became personal, it was just an abstract argument. No one in either group new Lonnie Quail or the murder victim. For them, it was just about being heard and seen giving their opinions. Rodney just stared straight ahead and didn’t see any of this. I had a placard in my window that had been given me and allowed me access to a guarded lot inside the prison.

By ten minutes until midnight, we were seated in a small room, looking at a window with a curtain drawn across the inside. Bill Reader was there along with the DA. A couple of police officers and a county sheriff were also present. A man and woman sat on the other side of the room, holding each other. I assumed they were the parents of the victim – I had never met or interviewed them.

A few minutes later, the curtains parted and we could see Lonnie lying on a table, strapped down. There was already an IV in each arm, the tubes leading out of site into another room. His head turned and his eyes met mine for a moment. He nodded as best he could and I nodded back. He then looked at his brother and never moved his eyes away.

The prison physician stepped forward and swabbed the arm on the other side with a white cotton ball he had dipped in alcohol. He then gave Lonnie an injection that would put him to sleep prior to the actual lethal injection being pushed through one of the IVs. After a few minutes, his eyes blinked a few times then shut forever.

We left the prison half an hour later, and drove to Rodney’s home in silence. When we got to his home, he got out, looked at me once through the window, and turned away. We never spoke again. As I drove home, I thought about the execution. The thing I remember most was the white cotton ball. Why did they care about infection when they’re about to kill a man?

New York City

It was February 1986, the first time I was in New York City. My wife, Cathy, was there on a business trip. She works for a large international business machine company that I won’t name here, and at that point in her career was in Manhattan often. They put her up in the Intercontinental Hotel on Forty-Eight street between Park and Lexington.

She had been there all week and I was flying up on Wednesday night. This would leave me alone Thursday and Friday to explore, then we would spend the weekend together and come home Sunday. She hadn’t been out much since she had arrived – her office was less than a block from the hotel. Being from the ‘small’ city of Atlanta, we had heard all the rumors and had the standard fears of life in the Big Apple. I had done some research and studied maps and somewhat knew the lay of the land. The fact that they numbered the avenues east to west and the streets south to north helped.

I flew into LaGuardia late Wednesday, collected my bags, and headed out to get a taxi. All taxis in New York City are yellow. I don’t know if this is a law or not. I do know that until 1954 there was a law that all taxis have a grill in the trunk to keep them from hauling dead bodies. I tend to do more research than necessary.

At any rate, I faced fear number one and hopped into the back of a yellow cab – I don’t remember if it was a Yellow Cab. It’s a ‘known fact’ that all New York City taxi drivers are there to rip off unsuspecting tourists, so I was very vigilant and watched his every turn. I was immediately lost, and he could have taken me to Bayonne, New Jersey and I wouldn’t have known the difference. He, in fact, took me across the Triborough Bridge and down the FDR, but I didn’t know that at the time.

I went up to Cathy’s room and unpacked. She had scored a corner suite at Lex and Forty-Eighth, in what used to be the old Barclay hotel. The windows in this hotel actually opened, so I did so and peered out. Looking down Lexington from the ninth floor, I could see a beautifully lit skyscraper a few blocks south. Hanging out the window and defying gravity, I took a few pictures of what I would learn later was the Chrysler Building.

We decided to go out and find something to eat. As I said, Cathy had hardly been out all week and was glad for my company. I still hadn’t mastered the city, so we walked out onto Forty-Eighth, flipped a coin, and headed west. It was a lucky decision because this took us past the skating rink at Rockefeller center, and a deli on the corner of Seventh. We had no idea at that point we were looking at Times Square.

The next day, we got up early – she went to work and I hit the streets. Tomorrow, I had heard it would snow. People from up north make fun of southerners because we don’t know how to get around in the snow. From this, I assumed the city wouldn’t slow down, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I would find out the next day that the snow didn’t affect much of anything. Gridlock in the snow was every bit as efficient as gridlock on dry pavement. I had a vague idea of a route which would show me most of the city, and I got to it.

First, I headed in a zigzag route north and west to Fifty-Seventh Street, ending up in front of the Plaza. I crossed the street and stopped near the entrance to Central Park. Here, I faced fear number two. It’s another ‘known fact’ that the life expectancy of anyone walking into Central Park was about seven seconds. I braved my fears, took the Fifth Avenue entrance to the park, walked around a pond called The Pond (what do you expect, they can’t come up with names for streets either), and went back out the Sixth Avenue entrance. Veni, Vidi, Vici.

Next stop, Times Square. I knew all I needed to do was head south until I encountered Broadway, and then follow it. About halfway there, a stranger who spoke to me in a strange tongue accosted me. Fear number three – don’t talk to anybody; they are rude at best and hostile at worst. I just shook my head and kept walking. About three steps later, my brain translated the question from the native language; I think it was Jersey. The man had just asked me if I knew how to get to Seventh Avenue.

I need to stop here and give you a visual. I’m wearing jeans and sneakers. I have on an I Love New York sweatshirt I bought at the airport, and a NY hat from the same place. I have a camera around my neck. I could have been carrying a placard that said Tourist, but I thought that would be redundant. Of the hundreds of people within reach at that particular moment, why did this person ask me? The funny thing was, I knew the answer!

I turned around and yelled, “Yo! Turn left at the next street, it’s one block over.”

A few blocks later, I entered a large intersection. A building caught my eye and I realized I was looking at the Empire State building. As I looked around to frame this picture, I noticed the lighted billboards and realized I was in the middle of Times Square. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe something, more… square? I took the standard pictures here and turned left toward my next destination, Rockefeller Center.

I had seen the skating rink the night before with Cathy, but my goal today was my first observatory, the top of what was then called the RCA building. I began what would become a ritual that day – take an elevator, wait in line, buy a ticket, take another elevator, wait in another line, etc.

Finally, I emerge on the seventieth floor, looking north over Central Park. I can’t describe the view or the impact. What is amazing is that everywhere I would turn that day would be another just like it. This was truly sensory overload. I take that picture and begin walking clockwise around the top. At the next corner, I lean over and see an aerial view of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I didn’t know it then, but this deck had the only view that isn’t hampered by a fence. You can actually crawl up onto the wall and look over into the abyss. I did so, and took a few shots of the cathedral. When Cathy saw that one, I had some ‘splaining to do.

On to the south side of the building, and I am looking at lower Manhattan. The Empire State is straight ahead, and the twin towers are further down to the right. These are my next major destinations, so I took many pictures. I could never have imagined the hole that would be in that view five years later.

I look over to the left and see the same art-deco building I had admired from the hotel window. I asked a man standing next to me if he knew what building that was.

“What? Dat building? Ah you kiddin’ me? Dat’s da Chrysler Building.”

Shaking his head in disgust, he walked away from the ignorant tourist. Now, that’s the New York I’m talking about.

Finally, I tear myself away from the view, descend to the street, and head south to the Empire State building. Same process going up. After the last view, this one was a bit disappointing, but the view to the south was amazing. Now I could see more of the harbor and a distant peak at Lady Liberty half covered in her scaffolding. She had been refurbished, and was being reopened soon in honor of her birthday. Still, this –was- the Empire State – the original skyscraper. King Kong and Tarzan had both scaled this edifice – and I was here.

Down again and out again and south again. I wander south past First Street and into the jungle of The Village, Soho, Little Italy and Chinatown. How can the same city that is so organized and regimented all the way from 1st to 193rd, leave this jumbled mess in place. I became instantly lost. The only thing that kept me on track was the occasional glimpse of the World Trade Towers through gaps in the buildings. I don’t know how I would have gotten out today.

Finally, I emerge at the World Trade Center and start up for my last observatory. I assumed there would be an observatory on each one, so I pick a building and start up. I discover my mistake, and head back down again, across the plaza and into the right building. Out again into another magnificent view – the city, the bay, and the bridges, overwhelming.

Back on the streets, I head south again a few blocks to Battery Park. This is the park on the very southern tip of Manhattan. It has been featured in many, many movies such as Marathon Man and Desperately Seeking Susan. It is where you will find the statue with the plaque, “Give us your tired, your hungry, etc.”

I was tired and hungry, but I had one more thing to do – The Staten Island Ferry. I found the terminal building without a problem and the ticket booth out front. It cost a quarter at that time, so I bought a ticket and entered the terminal. I wasn’t sure where to go then, but across the way was a huge mass of people crowded around a closed gate. I did what sheep do and joined the herd. A few minutes later a bell rang, the gate opened, and we all pressed forward.

It was smelly and cold. It’s hard to describe the smell, but imagine an enclosed place where thousands of people go every day to sit and smoke and sweat. Throw in some diesel fumes and the East River. Most of the people needed to get to Staten Island. A few of us were tourists just there for the ride. The rest were panhandlers and homeless who could hang out all day for a quarter. On another trip, I would discover a similar group riding the subway system.

The water was choppy as I sat in the bow trying to take in the view. I took many pictures. The Statue of Liberty partially dressed in scaffolding. Governor’s Island and lovely Bayonne, New Jersey. The view back toward Manhattan and the two towers that once graced her skyline. As the day grew darker and I grew colder and more tired, I was happy when we finally docked back at Battery Park again and I could get off.

I had one hell of a day and saw everything I set out to see. But now it was late and almost dark. I had probably walked about ten miles with all the detours. It was at least two miles back to First Street and my hotel was on Forty-Eighth. My plan ended at Staten Island. There was no way I was going to walk all the way back. I didn’t want to pay for a taxi. I thought briefly about the subway, but it was a ‘known fact’ that the only place you would die quicker than Central Park was on the subway. Besides, I was afraid I’d get on the wrong train and end up in Canada or somewhere.

I looked around and saw several lines of people waiting at bus stops. Aha! I’ll take a bus. But which one? Finally, I decided that any bus I got on was heading north so would take me closer to home. Of course, the flaw in my logic was I forgot about Brooklyn just over the bridge. I picked a line and waited.

While waiting, I realized I didn’t know how much the bus cost or how it worked. In Atlanta, it cost seventy-five cents and you had to have exact change. I didn’t want to sound like a complete tourist, so I tapped the woman on the shoulder in front of me.

“How much does the bus cost these days?”

“A dollar! Can you believe it?
“A dollar? Are you kidding me? I remember when it was a quarter.”

We shook our heads commiserating. I got on what was a very crowded bus and stood for a trip to somewhere. Trying to look out the window without appearing to be staring at the person across from me I watched our progress in what I hoped was the right direction. Finally, I saw the United Nations building and knew I was on Second Avenue at Forty-Second. Close enough. I got out at the next corner and started west.

Finally, dead tired, cold to the bone, and starving I reached our suite where Cathy was waiting.

“Hi. I was wondering where you were. Did you do much today?”

“No. Not much. Just walked around.”

Execution on The Third Moon

Gjinn would be executed at the rising of the third moon. According to Leonar law, there would be no more appeals, no more chances. The crime he was accused of was simple – he had failed to bow his head as a Leonar Lord had passed on the street. Bowing their heads was second nature to all Graks long before they came of age, but on this occasion Gjinn had raised his head and stared directly into the eyes of the passing Leonar. His brother, Kjinn, had seen the head rise out of the corner of his eye, but despite whispering heatedly under his breath, Gjinn had maintained his proud stance.

Now it was the night of execution – the one day of the month when all three moons were full, and Kjinn would share the cell until they walked to the scaffold together. They had shared their lives as one, and on this, the last night of Gjinn’s life, they would stay together until the fall of the blade. Kjinn had no recriminations for his brother for though they had never been apart, he knew Gjinn had a mind of his own, and often used it to his own downfall. The Grak brothers spent the first few hours after starset reminiscing about the adventures they had shared since they were born together seventeen years ago.

As Grak tradition dictated, they kneeled and bowed their heads in prayer to Han at the rising of the first moon. Han was one of the three Grakken gods, and the nocturnal Graks were persistent in their prayers at the rising of each moon. As was customary, they faced the rising moon, even though they couldn’t see it from the cell. Only a dull grey glow reached through the window high in the cell to tell them that the first moon had arisen.

On the second moon, they wailed at the injustice that the Leonars had perpetrated on the Graks since time immemorial. Sensing at last that prayer was futile, they couldn’t bring themselves to hold the traditional prayers at the rising of the second moon. Besides, Kjinn thought, there would be no prayer on the third moon this night. Only once a month, at the time of Lunis were all three moons seen full in the same sky. Convention held that all executions were held on this night.

When the third moon rose, the jailor came to take them to the podium where Gjinn would be beheaded. The brothers would stay together until the end. They walked together down the long dark corridor to the rear door of the jail that led out onto the moonlit courtyard. This was Lunis and all three moons hung in the air and lit the night in twilight. The first moon hung over the western horizon as the third moon was rising over the east. The second moon hung full over head and everything was cast with three shadows.

When they were led up onto the podium Kjinn knelt as his brother’s head was placed on the block. When the executioner, a Leonar of course, asked if he had any last words, Gjinn turned to his brother and asked that him not to forget his struggle against the oppressors. Kjinn merely looked at his brother with a deep sorrow in his eyes, knowing that forgetting Gjinn would be impossible. He knew also in his heart that his life and existence would be much diminished by the passing of his brother. As he looked sadly one last time at Gjinn, he thought with bitterness the maxim he had heard all his life, “A one-headed Grak is no Grak at all.”

C&O Canal

There are so many fascinating and beautiful places to run in Washington D.C. that most visitors never learn about one of the nicest runs in this, or any other, area. I’m talking about the C&O canal, and while most local runners, walkers, and cyclists are familiar with it, many out-of-towners never get the opportunity to run this nice, flat, earth-paved towpath along the Potomac River.

Most runners even on their long runs will never get outside the beltway, but distance is no problem. The canal runs for 184 miles to Cumberland, Maryland, following the Potomac for most of that journey. The path is well used and well maintained, and depending on time of day, is in the shade much of the way. The last time I was in D.C. I did my long run on the canal and found myself running much farther than I planned. The path and the scenery was so pleasant, I kept wanting to go just a little bit further.

To get there, head to the White House on the Pennsylvania Avenue side and continue west on Pennsylvania, through Washington Circle onto M Street and into Georgetown. You can turn left as early as 29th and run the two blocks down to the towpath, or use Thomas Jefferson and stop by the Georgetown Visitors Center for more information. The start is a little more than a mile from the White House along a very scenic and historic route.

If you find yourself in D.C. and need a longer run than the mall can provide, I highly recommend a run down the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath.

The Refrigerator

The light suddenly came on and Heinz stood proud and tall hoping to be noticed, hoping to be the one chosen for this mission, whatever it was. A hand reached in and grabbed a soda, quickly retreating and turning the world once again dark as the door was shut. French’s smirked, “Why do you always think you will be the chosen one, you’re nothing but a Nazi catsup.” “CATSUP?” I’ll have you know…” Mr. Hunt interrupted, “Excuse me, but I spell my name with a K if you’d bother to read my label, it’s ketchup.” “I don’t care how you spell it,” piped in Lea, “can we return to the subject at hand? We need to ascertain our primary course of engagement in the pursuit of our communal objective.” “Yeah, and we need to figure out what do next, too,” added Perrins.

HP, also from England, and Heinz and the locals, rolled his eyes. If the normal bickering weren’t enough, the schizophrenic sauce from Worcestershire only added to the confusion. “That’s right, we have to figure out a way to achieve a more commanding presence. We are being ignored while colas get constant attention. The Hand That Reaches clearly has a Coke problem.”

“Well, it’s not that anything is wrong with me!” spoke up French’s. “Me either,” said Hellmann’s, “I’m real, and only contain the freshest premium ingredients and whole eggs, mixed to a creamy, rich texture, and…” “Yeah, yadah yadah yadah,” Tabasco said, his fiery temper showing again, “HP’s right. If we don’t do something about the problem, we’ll all end up in The Big Green Can. We stay in here until our lids are crusty and we get all separated. Then The Hand That Reaches comes and tosses us into The Big Green Can and we’re never heard from again. What does HP stand for anywho?”

“House of Parliament,” Lea and Perrins shouted together, “where are you from?” “Where am I from?” Tabasco asked, incredulous, “I’m from the great state of Loosyanna. Speaking of which, hey Frenchy, when’s your cousin Dijon coming back? She was hot! She comes and goes all the time and you just stay in here year after year.” “You’re one to talk,” said French’s, “you don’t even belong in here.”

Lea suggested, “Perhaps we could descend to the subsequent projection, then it may be possible to vault over to a more prominent location, eclipsing that effervescent swill.” “Wouldn’t it be easier just to climb down to the next shelf, then jump over in front of the colas?” asked Perrins. “I’m tall and thin and don’t intend to lower myself to the fat shelf with Mr. Vlasic,” cried Kikkoman. “Oy vay, we’re not fat, we’re just big boned,” said the kosher dills. “You don’t have bones, you’re a vegetable,” pointed out Olive, “maybe if you didn’t stay half pickled all the time, you could lose a little weight.” “Get stuffed,” rejoined Vlasic. “We’re already stuffed, you marinated gourd.”

Two of the salad dressings clamored together vying for attention in French and Italian. They pointedly ignored the third dressing who claimed to be from someplace called Thousand Island. “We don’t see what all the fuss is about. We like to feel needed as much as anyone, but we don’t want to be all used up. It’s degrading. First they stand you on your head for a couple of days, and then they bang on your bottom, and for what? Sooner or later we all end up in The Big Green Can, it’s inevitable.”

“Yes, my young friends, but you are forgetting Karma,” said Mr. Curry, “If we serve well in this life, we will return in a new life with a fresh start and an unbroken seal.” “I’ve been here for six months, and I’ve still got an unbroken seal,” cried the Christmas Chutney. “It’s easy for you to talk about Karma, Curry. You’re like Tabasco, you hardly ever get used, and you never go bad. I’m green with envy,” sniffed the cheese spread. “You’re green with mold,” barked Tabasco, “and leave me out of it.”

HP was trying to think of a way to bring order to this chaos and get the condiments to the main shelf where all the action was. His thoughts were disrupted once again by the loud clunking sound that came from the place next door every hour, followed by the sound of running water. Whoever that was over there, they must have some sort of intestinal disorder. Just then, the light came on and The Hand That Reaches came back and rattled around the shelves. It laid a hand on HP for a moment, filling him with hope and promise, then he was rudely shoved aside and The Hand grabbed up some applesauce. The Hand retreated and his world once again plummeted into darkness.

Cherry Coke

Black & white. 2 boys throwing a baseball on a side-street. 0ne says, "Let's get a Coke." "Yeah, a Cherry Coke.” The boys walk into an old drugstore. They go to the counter and are met by a kindly old woman, “What’ll it be, boys?” “2 Cherry Cokes.” “Coming right up,” she says and turns away. The next scene is a close-up of an old metal ice bin. The woman’s arms are seen reaching into the ice. The scene shifts to color and the arms become that of a much younger woman, as she pulls out 2 cans of Cherry Coke. The camera pulls back as a young blonde woman turns and puts the 2 cans on the counter in front of two college age guys. “Anything else, boys?” she asks as the two boys take their Cokes, smiling. “Cherry Coke, the choice of 3 generations”

Encounter with a Stranger

Dave sat down at the blackjack table, last chair from on the left. He usually liked the anchor position. The seat to his right was taken by a young middle-eastern man with a stack of red chips in front of him. The table was a five dollar minimum, so he spread five twenties out on the green felt for the dealer. He liked to start with twenty times his basic bet. As the dealer called out, “Cashing one hundred,” the man took a look around the table. The chair two down was occupied by a middle-aged woman who looked very unsure of what she was doing. Next to her, and older gentleman was tossing out chips and advice in equal measure. The chips were worth five dollars – the advice somewhat less. Four people at the table – enough to be quick, but not too quick.

In the process of playing the first few hands, they all met each other and talked about where they were from. The ‘expert’ was from Canada – he didn’t really narrow it down more than that. The woman who they now knew was a rookie was from Louisville. When Dave said he was from Atlanta, the man to his right, Adham, “You can call me Adam,” told him he had spent some time in Atlanta. When Dave asked, Adham said that he had attended Georgia Tech pursuing a graduate degree in Quantitative & Computational Finance. Dave asked him if you could make money in that field and Adham replied, “It depends on how you apply it.” He now lived in Los Angeles and drove over to Vegas on a regular basis to play blackjack.

The game went around and around for several hands and everyone was playing fairly smart. There is a basic strategy to playing blackjack that doesn’t involve counting cards or any other special tricks, and everyone was pretty much following those rules – some winning, some not. Dave was following the basic strategy, and in addition was raising his bets each time he won. This approach assumed the presence of ‘hot streaks,’ and that if you won a hand you were more likely to win the next one. There was no scientific basis for this assumption, but gamblers tend to believe in the laws of luck. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be gambling in the first place, would they?

There were six decks of cards in this ‘shoe,’ and it was on the third shoe that Dave noticed something a bit odd. Adham had been playing basic strategy just as Dave had and had probably won more than he lost. But on some hands, Adham changed his approach. The hand that was dealt next was a good example. The dealer had a three showing and Adham had fifteen. It’s a bit more complicated, but the strategy is based on the assumption that any card you can’t see is probably a ten. On the hand that was now on the table, Dave had fourteen and didn’t take a card. His thought was that if the next card was a ten, it would bust him. Adham also wouldn’t take a card, and hopefully the dealer has thirteen and would bust, making everyone at the table a winner.

But when Adham’s turn came, he made the raking motion indicating that he wanted a hit. Dave turned to look and the dealer hesitated since it was such an out of character play. Once the dealer was convinced he wanted the card, she slapped it face down in front of Adham’s hand – a six. Not only did this give Adham a twenty-one, if the dealer did have a ten in the hole, this would have given her nineteen, sweeping the table. The dealer turned over her hole card, which was, in fact, a ten. She then flipped over the next card. A nine hit the felt, busting her hand – everybody won.

The game continued on this way for a while and both Dave and Adham continued to win more often than not. Every few hands, Dave noticed Adham making a strange play, and every time, he won. Dave continued with his own strategy, but began betting with Adham on these odd times increasing his winnings.

After a while, the game began attracting unwanted attention. Several onlookers had gathered around the table, and the pit boss had started watching from his position. At one point, he spoke into his phone and was soon joined by another gentleman wearing a dark suit. It was at this point that Adham pushed his chips to the dealer and asked her to ‘color him in.’ He had amassed over five hundred dollars. When he left the table, so did two of the onlookers. The pit boss also took that opportunity to speak into his phone again.

Dave decided it was a good time for him to cash in and head back to his hotel also. After all, he had one over three hundred dollars in less than an hour, and he knew from experience, that you needed to know when to walk away from the table. Besides, he wanted to get online and check out the graduate degree programs at Georgia Tech. He thought he saw a lucrative career in Quantitative & Computational Finance in his future.

Execution on the Third Moon

Gjinn would be executed at the rising of the third moon. Kjinn would share the cell until they walked to the scaffold together. At the rising of the first moon, they preyed to Han. On the second moon, they wailed at the injustice that the Leonars had perpetrated on the Graks since time immemorial. When the third moon rose, the jailor came and took them to the podium where Gjinn would be beheaded. As Kjinn looked sadly at his brother, he thought with bitterness the maxim he had heard all his life, “A one-headed Grak is no Grak at all.”