Guppie Defined

 

The word Guppie is an acronym for Grossly Under-Performing Person. I use it to describe the majority of the people who work on what I call the corporate reef (see In Search of a Metaphor elsewhere). A formal definition is difficult to construct because of the diversity of the workforce, but the following list of Guppie characteristics gives a general introduction to the species.

• Guppies can be male or female, young or old.
• Given a choice, Guppies prefer to take a nap (see The Art of Napping).
• While ambitious members of the corporate community dress to win, the Guppie dresses to break even. Corporate dress codes are a nuisance for the Guppie, who usually manages to dress right on the line of corporate acceptability. Comfort and convenience are the driving forces in the Guppie's wardrobe selections. To draw a military analogy, if the corporate achievers can be thought of as wearing full dress blues, the Guppie wears the corporate equivalent of camouflaged fatigues. Unlike the power-dressers, the Guppie dresses to blend in, to disappear in the crowd.
• The Guppie's short-term career goal is to get by until quitting time.
• The Guppie's medium-term career goal is to last until Friday.
• The Guppie's long-term career goal is to stay employed until something comes along. He isn't sure what it is that he is waiting for, but he has a vague sense that salvation is on the way. It may be a feeling that some forgotten rich relative will surely remember him in his will, or that Publisher's Clearing House will call at any moment. The Guppie plots winning lottery strategies and dreams of economic freedom. It is this unfounded belief in imminent rescue that keeps him sane. He doesn't want to advance in the company, and he certainly doesn't want more responsibility. The Guppie does what he has to do to get by until relief arrives.
• The Guppie brings a power lunch in a brown paper bag, or dines at the nearest 7-Eleven store.
• The Guppie wakes each morning thinking about what he will do after work.
• Guppies are generally smarter than the people for whom they work, but they go to considerable trouble to keep it a secret. To appear too smart could result in one of two equally undesirable outcomes: Either the boss will be offended, in which case the Guppie's job will be in jeopardy, or somebody will be so impressed that the Guppie will be promoted to a position of responsibility. These are both undesirable possibilities from the Guppie's viewpoint. The Guppie is without corporate ambition, and likes the status quo.
• Guppies are exceptions to the well-known Peter Principle that states people rise to their level of incompetence. The Guppie lowers his or her level of competence to match the job.
• Guppies usually see clearer than the bosses. They always know what is wrong in their working group, and they usually know how to fix it, but they never volunteer, and nobody ever asks for their suggestions.
• The Guppie is not a true believer in the benevolence of the corporation. This is the single most important defining characteristic of Guppies. They feel no overwhelming sense of gratitude to the corporations for giving them a job.

The Art of Desktop Arrangement

 Being a successful Guppie demands considerable artistic sense, a fact that seems unlikely at first. Certainly the actual duties of a Guppie require no art, only a rudimentary knowledge of the business, and precious little of that. The artistic demands lie in the visual rather than the professional spectrum. The successful Guppie is one who knows how to arrange his or her desktop in an esthetically pleasing way. The desktop, approximately two-and-one-half by four feet, is similar to a painter's canvas; empty it says nothing, but let a talented person loose on it and it becomes an artistic work--a statement.

Many novice Guppies simply place whatever they are working on at the time in the handiest arrangement, with little concern for esthetics. This is the surest sign of an amateur. The experienced individual carefully distributes papers, pads, books, pencils, rulers, coffee cups, calendars, and telephones to achieve an effect with little or no concern for practical matters like the work at hand. Indeed, a pleasingly arranged desktop, with clutter and empty space properly balanced, precludes all work for that day. To spoil the effect by actually doing some work would be artistic heresy.

Guppies, like all artists, have individual desktop styles that are easily recognizable. This is not to imply, however, that a Guppie's desktop arrangement is static and unchanging; to use the same arrangement even twice would show a serious lack of creativity, and also might cause management to become suspicious concerning productivity. No, the creative Guppie changes his display at least daily, and sometimes several times during a day. These changes are not haphazard however; each is a carefully thought-out move, sometimes contemplated for hours beforehand, intended to improve the arrangement. Merely moving a pencil an inch or two can not only create the impression that work has been done, it can sometimes change the entire nature of the artistic statement.

Some may feel that desktop arranging has nothing at all to do with corporate survival, but those who know agree that it is the very essence of longevity. The ability to properly set up a display is an admirable as well as valuable talent.

Each Guppie, within the limits of his or her ability and style, strives to achieve an overall effect that satisfies intellectually, and at the same time gives the illusion of "busyness," as if something important has either just happened or is about to happen.

(Next Week, Part II: Pencil Sharpening.)

---

The Crossing of Sam Higgins

 I have been working on this story for years, and I am sick of it. Every time I come back to it, determined to finish, I rearrange it a bit, but remain unsatisfied with the result. Maybe posting it here, in its latest incarnation, will motivate me to either finish it or trash it.

The rain began sporadically in that uncertain season between winter and spring that can be delightful or perverse; for two weeks showers fell in fits and starts from thin gray clouds that rode quickly on the cold wind and barely hid the bright promise of the late March sun. Then, in the third week, the wind died; the clouds thickened and lay dark and heavy over the land. A cold relentless rain began that soaked the spongy just-thawed earth and, when the saturated soil could hold no more, the runoff rushed into ditches and creeks and, finally, into the river.

The river, clear and pristine when the rain began, awoke from its winter sleep and changed to a thick brown serpent that roiled and hissed as it swelled up through weeds and willows and slithered across bottomland fields into the oaks and hickorys that marked the start of high ground. It went about its work--caressing, consuming, overcoming all in its path.

The house stands safely back in the timber between the river and the road. There is no clearing--the house merely exists in the midst of the woods, squatting mushroom-like in the damp shadows, as if sprung from some wind- or water-borne spore. The unpainted clapboard exterior, weathered to match the surrounding forest, makes the house nearly invisible to all save those who know its whereabouts. Travelers on the road or the river, if they notice the house at all, sense a vague coolness--a whiff of mildew, earth, and cobwebs--as if they stand at the entrance to a cave.

Each morning at first light, Sam Higgins stands on the back porch peering through the trees at the river, the slate-gray sky, and the woods; and each morning as he stands there the rain continues--heavy some days so he can hear it drumming all around in the forest, some days light and misty, a cold dampness that penetrates his nightshirt and causes him to shiver as he turns back into the house with an armload of wood and kindling. He finds many small excuses to postpone the trip to town for another day, but today, Wednesday of the third week of rain, Lila, his wife, shows him the empty medicine bottle. It has been empty for two days now. He sighs and knows that he will have to go today. He does not own a car, and the thought of trudging to and from Cape May in this weather does not appeal to him.

After breakfast, he comes out and stands again in the shelter of the shabby porch. The river, plainly visible now through the trees, is higher than he has ever seen it. Lila comes to the back door.

"Reckon you'll be back afore dark?" she asks.

"I reckon," Sam says without looking at her.

They met in Tennessee during the war when he, a new soldier away from home and lonely, came on furlough to visit kin he knew only through hearsay. She was fifteen and pretty, his second cousin, and they watched each other shyly and smiled. She may have been mad, even then, but if so it was a shy harmless madness, somehow fetching in its innocence.

After eight months overseas, he returned on a stretcher, minus part of a lung. She wrote long letters daily while he recuperated in hospital, and when he was discharged he returned to Tennessee and married her. He brought her back to his Missouri woods and they settled there between the river and the road.

They were mostly happy in those early days. She complained some at first of homesickness for her family, and Sam felt guilty for having taken her so young. For a while, letters came once or twice a year, and she would cry over them and be out of sorts for several days; he learned to leave her alone in these times. When she occasionally mentioned going to Tennessee for a visit, he would say, "One of these days we will." It had a hopeful sound to it and he always felt a little better after he said it, but they never returned to Tennessee. After a time the letters stopped coming and she stopped mentioning it.

They had no children; they did not make a conscious choice to remain childless--she just never conceived. But whether the failure was his or hers they never learned.

"We'll see about it one of these days," Sam said when they were young. But they got used to being childless, and the years passed until it was too late to do anything.

Over the years she grew more reclusive and lost contact with everyone but Sam. She was content to depend on him. She cooked and washed and cleaned the house, and she seemed happy. But when she had a spell, she didn't speak for days, as if she were mute.

Other times she was bright and lucid and talked and laughed with him in the old way as if she had no recall of that other darker world she feared. But at night when the terror returned, she would be mad again. Those nights were when she became afraid and hard to handle, when she saw and heard things out in the darkness that normal folks couldn't, terrible things that made her moan and roll her eyes and cry. On those nights, he would draw her close to him on their narrow bed and shush her like a child with soothing words and caresses.

Once when she got sick and delirious with fever, he had to go to Cape May and bring Doc Pierce back to tend her. After he had treated her, the doctor turned to him and said, "Sam, you should get some help with her. She's getting to be too much for you. You're not young anymore."

Sam had nodded and said, "I know. One of these days I'll have to." But he had nursed her back and when she was well they had gone on as before.

The rain is coming hard again, and he waits, hoping it will let up. But it continues to beat on the roof and windows, rattling the old house, and just before noon he begins donning the heavy yellow slicker that smells of sweat and rubber.

Lila watches him getting ready and there is concern in her expression.

"'Spect you'll be back here by dark?" she asks again. He hears the worry in her voice and knows what she is thinking.

"Oh yes. I'll be back early. I'll catch a ride sure at the bridge." The trip is two hours one way if he has to walk all of it, but if, as usually happens, he catches a ride at the bridge where the county road crosses the river he can make the round trip in just over two hours. "You just stay here and keep dry and have me some supper ready," he says, to reassure her.

The road, like the river, follows the path of least resistance. It is little more than a short cut, a narrow winding track that connects the main county road up on the ridge to the state highway bridge that crosses the river to Cape May. It began years ago as a convenience for men who invaded the woods with wagons and cross-cut saws and broadaxes in search of timber suitable for railroad cross ties that could be converted to cash money at the depot in Cape May. Later, after all the cross-tie timber was gone, they came again with their implements, this time in search of what was left that could be sold as stave bolts for making barrels. Later still, the county, as a favor more than an obligation, legitimized the road's existence by making an annual swipe at it with a road grader--once down and once back--to smooth the ruts and accommodate the occasional tourist or pickup full of fishermen. The road would have soon disappeared in weeds and regrowth without this annual renewal. Of those who use the road, as many are lost as know where they are going.

Sam walks on the grassy center strip between ruts that feed torrents of cold brown water into the knee-deep ponds that stand in the low places. In some places the timber grows together over the road, forming a dark tunnel, but the emerging leaves and vines don't keep the rain out, they merely concentrate it into larger drops that splash coldly on the rubber slicker that feels like snake skin where it touches him.

The hat makes him uncomfortable. In the woods he depends as much on hearing as vision to stay aware, and now, with the rain hat covering his ears, he cannot hear. It is like being blind, he thinks. Sam doesn't like or keep dogs, an unusual circumstance in these hills. To him, dogs are noisy stupid beasts that blunder about disturbing and obscuring the natural voice of the woods. He has been accused by some of killing dogs that he found running loose, chasing deer, but nobody has proved it.

When he reaches the bridge, cars and pickups are parked at both ends, and crowds of people are watching several men out on the bridge trying to dislodge drifts from the pilings. The river is within three feet of being over the bridge, and the men use long poles, trying to pry and nudge the drifts loose.

As Sam crosses the bridge, he feels a low-pitched vibration, almost an audible hum, through the soles of his boots. He nods to the men working with the poles. "Sam, if you want to get back across today, you'd better hurry," one of the workers says. "She ain't gonna last long at this rate."

A few minutes later, in Cape May, Sam visits the post office, where he picks up the brown envelope containing the government check, the bank, where he cashes the check, and the drugstore, where he buys the medicine. The small disability pension covers most of their expenses. In the summers, to supplement their income, he hires out as a fishing guide for eight dollars a day plus tips. He spends most summer days on the river, guiding city people on river float trips. He is the best guide on the river, and he is always in demand; but he only accepts one day floats. He never stays over night. In the winters he sets and runs a trap line along the river, making additional money selling mink and fox and bobcat hides.

Just before 3 o'clock someone passes the word for everyone to get off the bridge. Sam, trudging down the shoulder of the road, sees the men leaving the bridge; drifts and uprooted trees pile against it in such mass that the few daring or foolish souls who wade out to dislodge them, can't keep them free. They can see the structure swaying now, and the bow is quite visible when you squat on the bank and sight along the downstream rail. The upper railing is so clogged and covered with drifts that it is hidden. Water moccasins cling impassively to the brush out there, trying to escape the insane water that is normally their home. The drifts are out in the center of the current, a sure sign that the river is still rising. Each time a new log or drift strikes, the bridge shudders.

By the time he got there, even the stumps at each end of the bridge that had not been washed away were covered. The road disappeared at a gentle angle into the muddy soup that didn't boil or flow fast close in, and it reappeared at the same angle far across on the other side as if it had reflected from a mirror.

Sam walked down to the water's edge and waded a ways out toward the last sign that was above water and still marked the entrance to the bridge. Some people on the bank squatted and eyed him quizzically. When he came out again, one of the onlook ers said, "She's still on the rise, Sam".

He watched a huge sycamore roll up from the depths out of the flood and stand almost upright, before it slipped and crashed back to disappear again.

Sam didn't look at the speaker. He nodded and stared off down the river to where it swept in under the bluff and then swung back to the west out of sight behind the willows and the sycamores.

Sam turned and started back up the road toward Cape May.

"Whatcha gonna do, Sam?" one of the watchers asked.

"I'm agoin' acrost," Sam said.

"I hope ye can fly."

The others chuckled at this show of wit and Sam walked on.

He found old man Hardaway at home. Mrs. Hardaway smiled at him through the screen door when he knocked, but he could see the distaste behind the smile. She was a fancy woman and didn't approve of him and his ways.

"What can I do for you, Sam?" Mr. Hardaway asked.

"Well, Lila is acrost the river by herself and I need to get over there to be with her tonight, and I was wondering if I could borry one of your boats to get acrost in? I'd bring it straight back soon's the river goes down a little."

Mr. Hardaway stepped out onto the front porch, closing the wooden and glass door behind him as if what he was going to say was not fit to be heard by those inside. He dug at something far back on his lower jaw with a wooden toothpick. Occasionally, he extracted the pick from his mouth with a sucking sound and examined the end of it.

"Well now Sam, I don't know. I don't think that river's in any condition to be out on. Why don't you wait till along about dark and see if it hasn't crested and tamed down some. She ought to drop pretty fast, once the crest comes."

"She ain't going to crest till after dark, Mr. Hardaway. I hear they got a real bad rain up north of here. I've got to cross now. The longer I wait, the worse it'll be."

"Don't you think Lila,...your wife could make out one night by herself? I mean it's like committing suicide going out on that river when its like this. We could get you a place to spend the night with some folks here in town and tomorrow you can go across. Don't that make more sense?"

"Yes sir, it does, but I got to get acrost now. I can't leave her alone over there. She gets scared you see, and I just can't let her down. Could I borry the boat?"

Mr. Hardaway smiled a little smile as he removed the tooth pick noisily from his mouth. He shook his head, as if in disbelief.

"Sam, them boats cost me a hundred dollars apiece when they was new. Now if you want to risk your neck out there, that's your business, but if I give you a boat and you don't make it, I'm, out a hundred bucks. See what I mean? Lordy, man, I'd like to help you but I make my living with those boats, and I can't just throw them away like that because your cr--because she gets scared of the dark."

Sam looked steadily at Mr. Hardaway now, not being deferential. "Will you sell me one?" he asked levelly.

"Sam, I..."

"Will you sell me one?" Sam repeated.

"I don't know. I guess so."

"I'll give you a hundred dollars for a boat right now. That way if it goes down, you can buy another one. Tomorrow or next day when the water lowers, I'll bring it back good as new and you give me my money back. How's that?"

Mr. Hardaway spat out over the porch railing and thought for a moment. Finally he cocked his head and looked up.

"Tell you what. I'll give you eighty back when you return it."

"OK" Sam said without taking his eyes from the other man's. He took out his wallet and extracted a hundred dollars of the pension money. He handed it to Hardaway, who counted it slowly, feeling each bill between his thumb and forefinger to be sure two weren't stuck together. When he was satisfied it was all there, he went back inside and got his hat and the keys to unlock the boats.

Sam struck at the water with the paddle and the boat leapt out of the calm eddy into the current. The river was quiet, it's only sound a faint murmurous hiss among the trees that now stood deep and trembling in its path.

Sam entered the current at an oblique angle, not fighting against the force but going with it, letting the river work its will while he subtly maneuvered the boat toward the opposite shore.

The group of onlookers quickly receded and disappeared behind the tormented trees at the first bend.

He yielded the right of way to a huge log. As it swept past, a water moccasin...

It was easier then, by feeling his way carefully along the edge of the current, he was able to avoid disaster. The water still moved fast, faster than he liked as he marveled at how quickly the banks slid past, but he could control it.

The water was too fast and the boat demanded too much attention for him to try to get the snake out.

The snake expressed neither fear nor interest.

All went well until he approached the bluff. He heard the river change long before he rounded the last bend and saw what lay ahead. The channel cut in beneath the bluff in a long gradual bend that had eaten away half of a hill to expose the gray and white rock and form the three-hundred foot bluff. Now, he could see the current battering against the base of the bluff, raging in a thunderous voice as it slowly proceeded with its conquest of the hill. As he watched, a boulder big as a house, its support undercut by the seething flood, gave way and slowly plunged into the muddy torrent.

He could see the froth on top of the waves now where the water was tearing at the bluff. The waves were large violent things that thundered and crashed in a frenzy of destruction.

Somewhere near the middle of the stream, he nearly lost it. There was a crashing sound from deep under the surface, as if two gigantic objects had collided, and suddenly a frothing vortex appeared directly beneath the boat. The boat spun 360 degrees like a match stick; and his suddenly frightened strokes with the paddle, directed like blows against the river, were totally useless. Water slopped into the boat and threatened to swamp it. He didn't realize until after it was over that he had been moaning aloud.

He could see Lila on the other side. She was standing in the back door of the house. It was too far, though, he couldn't tell what sort of state she was in. He whistled once as loud as he could and waved an arm, but he couldn't tell if she had seen him. It was still so far away that he didn't see her disappear back into the house again. He just knew he was watching her standing there one second, and the next she was gone and the door was only a black rectangle. The electricity must be off, he thought. Otherwise she would have the lights on.

Then, as he watched, she came running out of the house into the back yard and down the incline to the wood pile. She was running wildly as if someone or something was chasing her. Her hair was loose and it flew out behind her in waves and ripples. Then he hears her screaming. He could make out the terror and the fear in her sobs and screams. She ran to the chopping block and tried to tear the axe loose from where it was embedded in the wood. At first it didn't come loose and she almost fell because it threw her off balance. But she recovered and yanked again on the handle. It came loose and she raised it above her head, staggering backwards as if holding a demon at bay. She swung it twice at the empty air and the force nearly caused her to fall again. He yelled as loud as he could, trying to make her hear, to realize he was there and she was not alone, but he was still too far. He whistled again, but it was no use.

He stops on the porch and peers into the pitch black room.

"Lila? It's me."

The only sound from within is a whispery, slithery sound. Something cold happens in his chest. He reaches around inside the door and turns the light switch. The sudden brightness from the single bulb hanging in the middle of the room blinds him for an instant.

Then he sees her.

She has pressed herself into the far corner of the room, her shoulders hunched forward to more closely fit into the space, as if she would merge with the walls. Her dark hair hangs in damp ropey coils over her heaving shoulders and breasts. She holds the shotgun rock-steady, though, pointed at the center of his chest, and her mouth, even twisted into her most engaging smile, cannot conceal the hatred in her bright feverish eyes.

Sea Story

 Laughing and knocking rain from their hair and shoulders, two young men pushed through the double glass doors into the bright fluorescence of the hospital lobby. The middle-aged receptionist didn't smile or speak when they stopped in front of her; she raised one eyebrow and the opposite corner of her mouth in an inquiring sort of grimace.

"We're here to see Otis Sanders," the shorter of the two announced. The receptionist wrinkled her nose slightly and sat back in her chair. The smell of stale beer wafted across the desk. She looked down at her watch and then back up at him through her eyebrows.

"Visiting hours are over at eight-thirty," she said. "You only have ten minutes."

"That's OK." The short one smiled and waited. The receptionist eyed the paper sack that the tall one held partially concealed behind his hip.

"Do you know his room number?" she asked, looking again at the short one.

"Nope." His eyes didn't waver from hers. His smile broadened a little. She sighed and slowly consulted the list in front of her.

"One-twenty-one," she said, nodding to the hall that led away to the right.

They followed the hall past some offices and examining rooms. "I hate the smell of these places," the tall one said. "They always smell like old, sick people. I don't like it."

They passed a nurse and the short one stopped and turned to watch her walk. "You're too damned sensitive, boy," he said. "I love it."

"One-twenty-one," the short one said, pointing ahead to a door. "You got the sack?"

"Yes."

"Come on."

A teen-aged boy lay in the bed by the door. A woman sat holding his hand, gazing red-eyed at him. The pale slack-jawed boy looked as if making an expression would be too difficult for him. A metal frame with a cloth screen divided the room, and Otis Sanders lay behind it in the bed by the window. He was a large angular man, perhaps twice the age of either of the young men. He lay on his back with his face turned toward the dark rain-streaked window, but his eyes were closed.

"Hey, you old sombitch," the short young man said.

Otis opened his eyes quickly and a look of panic flickered for an instant across his face before he smiled weakly and said, "Hey, Ben. Steve."

"How you feelin'?" Ben, the short one, sat on the edge of the bed; Steve remained standing near the screen, his back to the couple on the other side.

"Aw, I'll be all right," Otis said, but he said it quietly, as if he didn't want the news to get out. "What're you boys doing ashore?"

"The power steering went out on the cable boat again this morning. Me and the skipper tried to horse it for a while. We took turns at the wheel, but the seas were running four to six feet and we were both beat down to parade rest inside of an hour."

Otis nodded. "All three boats come in?"

"Yeah. No use keeping the shot boats out without the cable boat. The oil company boys are pissed. They're threatening to pull out and hire themselves some other boats."

"How long you be in?"

"They said it would take at least a couple days to fix. So, me and ol' Steve were headin' for Houston to get laid, and decided to stop in and surprise you."

Otis smiled wanly and nodded. He looked down at his hands.

"How's the leg?" Steve asked.

"OK I guess. They put a steel pin in it. It'll be a while before they know if it's going to mend."

"You'll mend," Ben said. "You're too damned ornery not to." He leaned forward and tapped Otis on the shoulder with the back of his hand; Otis flinched as if it had hurt. His face looked pale and sticky in the stark fluorescent light; his lips and stubble-covered jowls were slack and tremulous.

"No..." Otis started to say something, but he stopped and looked away. Ben leaned in close again, leering, and whispered loudly, "You been getting any of this young stuff running around here?"

Otis shook his head and tried to smile.

"Come on now. I'll bet you've goosed every nurse here at least once. Even the ugly ones."

Otis managed a grin.

"When you think you'll be back?" Steve asked.

"Aw..." Otis looked at the window and blinked twice. The wind gusted in the darkness outside and rain whispered against the pane. "I don't 'spect I'll be back," he said. "I think I'll stay ashore for a while and see if I can't get me a regular job."

"Bullshit," Ben said.

"No, I mean it."

"Why you old fart, you couldn't live ashore no more than a fish could." Ben paused, but Otis didn't respond. "Besides, you got to come back so we can get some decent chow. The skipper didn't have time to hire another cook after you got hurt. On the way out to sea that morning he asked if anybody in the crew could cook until you got back; and guess who volunteered?"

Otis shook his head slightly.

"Reneau." Ben opened his eyes wide. "That damned coon-ass told the skipper he could cook good. And guess what? Since then we ain't had nothing hot to eat but shrimp gumbo and rice. Three meals a day! That's all he can cook! Why, I went into the galley the other day and begged the old bastard to fix some potatoes, but he just laughed at me. If the freezer hadn't been stocked with cold-cuts, I'd have starved. Nossir, you've got to come back."

Otis smiled but didn't say anything. Ben frowned at Steve and motioned for the paper sack. "Looky here," he whispered. "We brought you something." He took out three cans of beer. "This'll cheer you up."

Otis shook his head quickly. "No, I can't have those in here," he said. "If they catch me I'll get in trouble. And if my old lady finds out, I'll be in even worse trouble."

"Come on, Otis. Hell, you never refused a beer in your life."

"No, really. I appreciate it, but I can't drink 'em boys. Y'all go ahead. I'm gonna quit."

"Haw, haw," Ben said.

Otis hesitated; his hands shook as they twisted the sheet over his chest. Finally, when Ben continued to hold the beers out to him, he took them and placed them inside the stand beside the bed.

"They'll help you sleep," Ben said, winking.

Otis shook his head. "When my old lady found out I was drunk that night I fell off the dock, she packed her things and was ready to leave me. She's threatened to do it before, but I only just managed to talk her out of it this time. She said she'd stay if I quit drinking and got a job ashore."

"She'll get over it."

"Not this time, I don't think. In the nearly thirty years we've been married, I've been either drunk or at sea most of the time. She's put up with a lot of crap, but she's always taken good care of me. Now she's calling the debt due."

"Hell, Otis, you'd go crazy living ashore."

"Maybe, but I've been working the boats since I was fifteen. A man can't stay at sea forever; sooner or later he's got to stop acting afool and grow up."

"But what will you do?"

"The wife talked to some of her people up in Tulsa, and they give me a job in their store."

"Are you serious?"

Otis nodded.

Ben shook his head in disbelief. "And you're sure enough on the wagon?"

Otis nodded again.

"I'm not believing this," Ben said.

"Well, I guess you'll have to. I haven't had a drink now since I fell a week ago."

"Surely one or two little old beers ain't going to hurt."

"No, I'm sorry."

"Tell you what. Let's just open them three right here and now. We'll each have one for old time's sake, and then me and Steve will shag it for Houston and some pussy."

"No. You boys drink it if you want to, but I can't."

"Well, I'll be damned."

A nurse poked her head around the screen and announced that visiting hours were over. Ben stood but he continued to stare down wide-eyed at Otis. Otis watched his own hands, still twisting the sheet.

"I guess we got to go," Ben said.

"Yes. Thanks...for coming by."

Steve stepped up to the bed and extended his hand. "Otis, you take it easy," he said.

Otis tried to smile, but his face merely trembled.

"You sure enough ain't coming back?" Ben asked.

"No."

"Well...you can at least come down to the docks and visit when we're in port."

Otis blinked several times. "We'll see," he said softly.

"I'll bet six months from now you'll be back at sea good as new."

"I don't..." Otis brushed a shaking hand across his eyes. "You tell the skipper to hire another cook," he said. "Tell him I said so."

"Jesus, Otis, I..."

"You tell him, y'hear?"

"OK, I'll tell him. But he won't believe it."

"Yes he will. Tell him I ain't comin' back."

Otis turned his face toward the dark window again. Ben frowned and shifted from foot to foot. "Well..." he said.

In a muffled voice, head still turned, Otis said, "I wish you'd take the beer."

"Naw, hell..." Ben sidled to the screen. "Well, take it easy," he said.

Otis raised a hand and let it drop; he continued staring out into the darkness.

Outside in the parking lot, Ben slammed the car in gear and squealed the tires on the wet pavement.

"You want another beer?" Steve asked when they were on the highway again.

Ben thought a moment. "Yeah," he said. "Hell yes."

Steve reached into the back seat and extracted two beers from an ice chest. He opened them and handed one to Ben. Steve fiddled with the radio for a while, but snapped it off when he couldn't find any music to suit him. Outside in the darkness, lightning flashed occasionally far off, and the rain hissed against the windshield.

"It's kinda sad," Steve said.

The wipers made soft regular tocking sounds. Ben sipped his beer carefully and then placed it on the seat between his legs.

"Ol' Otis," he muttered. "Jesus."

The Pilgrim

 

It started the night we gave the party to celebrate our new apartment. I noticed it as I helped her prepare for our guests--she was nervous. When the guests began arriving, she greeted them self-consciously and then escaped to the bar to fix drinks. She was an uncomfortable hostess. During the evening she moved constantly through the crowd, smiling, never pausing long with anyone. The young men watched her secretly as they sipped their drinks. Some reached out to touch her and smile as she walked among them--she was still a beautiful woman. She spent the evening in motion, fetching drinks, giving directions to the bathroom, nodding, smiling, never pausing for more than a moment with anyone.

Later, when most of the guests had gone, she retired into a corner of the living room with two of her friends and a famous entertainer. I sat in the dining room with some of my friends from work. I watched her laugh, animated and at ease now with the three women. The entertainer taught her a tap dance step.

She came into the dining room where we had just finished eating cake with pink icing.

"Why didn't we get any cake?" she asked.

She carried four cake-laden plates back to the corner and distributed them to the women. She scraped the pink icing off before she ate hers.

After everybody had gone, she placed a camp stool in the center of the living room and sat upon it, thinking. I brought her an apple. After an hour, she moved the stool one foot nearer the door and sat upon it again. An hour later, she repeated the one-foot move toward the door. I went to bed, but during the night I heard her making her one-foot moves every hour on the hour.

By morning, when I left for work, she was out in the hall, still sitting, still thinking, still moving a foot every hour. I tried to reason with her, but all she said was, "You've got to let me try". I brought her knapsack, filled with apples, and she wore it on her back.

It took her a week to reach the lobby.

The day she moved outside the building, I brought her yellow roll-up rain hat and her white golf umbrella. She emptied a weeks-worth of apple cores out of the knapsack into a sidewalk trash container.

"You'd be surprised at how much I've learned," she said. I brought more apples and put them in her knapsack.

"I've got to try," she said.

She set her course toward a bright spot on the horizon. She must have made it, because I don't think I ever saw her again.

A Cloud Story

 

Once, all clouds lived in a narrow zone above a mountain range that bordered a sea. The clouds fed on water vapor in the moist sea breezes that blew ashore and rode aloft on the mountainsides. When moisture was plentiful, the clouds let the excess water fall as rain, and the earth beneath was cool and green.

The best positions, the ones that all clouds wanted, were above the windward slopes of the highest mountain peaks where the winds were cool and nourishing; but since there were more clouds than mountains, the biggest bully clouds always held these choice locations. The smaller clouds had to scramble and scratch for moisture in crevices and valleys and above the low foothills.

Life for small clouds was not easy in the best of times, and as the population increased, it grew even more difficult. When the sea breezes stopped, as they sometimes did, a few small clouds always starved to death because there was not enough moisture to go around. During these hard times, the small clouds had to make difficult choices. They either settled for a meager and precarious existence on the fringes of society, or they exchanged their freedom for an illusion of security and joined the slave clouds that clustered about and served the big clouds. Occasionally, some small clouds joined to grab a good site from a large, old, tired, cloud; but these efforts, even when they succeeded, only resulted in a new bully.

The boundary of this cloud world was not well defined toward the sea; small clouds often ventured out over the water when wind and temperature conditions were particularly favorable, or when they had to flee from a big cloud; but they never stayed out for long, because updrafts were few over the flat sea, and clouds cannot live without updrafts.

The other boundary, over the mountains, was another matter however. A crooked visible line along the crest of the mountain range divided the habitable world--the green side--from the vast unknown and uninhabitable--the dry side. The mountains on this dry side descended gradually in long sharp ridges that quickly lost all traces of vegetation and turned to rolling brown foothills covered with jagged sun-scorched chunks of volcanic rock. Beyond the foothills a desert stretched away to the horizon, and it shimmered and heaved menacingly when viewed through the heat waves in the still air that lay above it.

The sun was merciless on the dry side, and no cloud ever willingly crossed the line for long. Sometimes a big cloud, angry at a small cloud caught stealing moisture from an air current that the big cloud claimed, pursued the small cloud until, confused and desperate, it dashed across the line. It meant almost certain death, for there was little chance of getting back across the divide to safety unless the big cloud showed mercy--which seldom happened. The big cloud would block the small cloud's return path, and send hot dry winds down the slope. The big clouds used these executions as examples to keep the small clouds under control. The other clouds would crowd up to the line and peer in horrified fascination between the mountain peaks at the struggles of their unfortunate comrade. The small cloud would scramble to reclimb the slope against the devilish wind until, weak and exhausted, it would dissolve into the dry air before the onlookers' eyes.

The dry side was the subject of much speculation and rumor among the clouds. "No cloud can survive out there," they all agreed. "The plain stretches to the end of the earth."

"It is the barrier that separates us from the gods."

The priest clouds said this, and they said it loud and often; they claimed divine connections and thus wielded a considerable influence in the cloud society. "It is a sin to cross to the dry side," they said. "That is the domain of the gods and they have forbidden clouds there."

And yet, when the sea breezes stopped, and life became difficult for the clouds, these same priest clouds said that it was because the gods were angry and a sacrifice was the only way to appease them. Then the priest clouds would meet in secret and, by a process known only to themselves, select one of the small clouds (it was always a small cloud) to be driven across the line to the dry side as an offering. The fact that these sacrifices had no noticeable effect on the sea winds, did nothing to cast doubt on their effectiveness in the eyes of the priest clouds.

The big clouds, sitting fat and dark atop their peaks like monarchs on thrones, boomed and flashed and gave orders and made all sorts of unreasonable demands upon the small clouds. Sometimes they argued among themselves and tried to grab one another's territories. As in everything else however, these disputes only harmed the small clouds. The big clouds recruited them into armies, and the small clouds did most of the fighting.

There were some defiant small clouds who, from time to time, rebelled against the tyranny of the big clouds and tried to stand against them, but these rebels, if they persisted, usually ended in one of two ways: they either capitulated and became slaves, or they died on the dry side. Even the other small clouds, fearful of the big clouds' wrath, denounced these rebels as the cause for most of the community's problems.

One small cloud emerged as the most rebellious of all. As a youngster, he listened and watched; he nosed about near other clouds both powerful and weak, and he overheard their conversations and observed their actions. As he pondered what he heard and saw, he realized that most of the needless misery and injustice in cloud existence was caused by greed and by the senseless cruelty of clouds to one another. He became curious about why things were as they were, and he began to ask questions that others dared not ask.

Soon, the small cloud began to speak to others about his ideas on the state of their existence and the quality of justice that seemed to him so abused. He spoke mostly to small clouds, for the big clouds cared little about what he said or thought as long as he stayed in his place. But once, when a big cloud thundered and threatened a group of small hungry clouds who had encroached on territory claimed by the big cloud, the small cloud boldly piped up and said, "Why can't we use this territory? You do not need it, and we will do it no harm. We have a right to live."

The small clouds gasped and the big cloud was taken aback at first; it was unheard of for a small cloud to talk back. The big cloud sputtered and rumbled for a moment and then advanced, fat and menacing, on the small cloud. The big cloud stirred up the wind and howled in anger at the cheekiness of the little intruder.

"How dare you, you little sheep!" he raged. "To talk to your better like that is cause for punishment." He sent out tremendous bolts of lightning that shocked and dazed the small cloud so that he could hardly move. But luckily the big cloud was slow and awkward. The small cloud managed to slip between two peaks and escape down a gully.

He stayed hidden until he recovered from the lightning shocks. "It's not fair!" he said over and over. "We have to scramble and fight for every little updraft and scrap of moisture just to stay alive, while the big clouds waste enough to feed all of cloudkind."

His fellow small clouds were concerned for his safety and they cautioned him to be careful. They did not like to arouse the anger of the big clouds. But the rebellious small cloud began again to speak his mind in public; he tried to enlist other small clouds to join with him and resist the tyranny, but they all turned their backs and hurried away, too frightened to be seen with him. There were a few, a very few, who came to him secretly and voiced their support for his ideas, but none were courageous enough to back him in public. He soon developed a reputation as the worst of the troublemakers, and the big clouds began to eye him with increasing suspicion and dislike.

Then one day, as he hung in a quiet sky absorbing moisture from the meager updraft above a small hill, a dark shadow blocked the sun and brought a chill to the air. He looked up and was startled to see a wall of big gray clouds advancing menacingly toward him.

"What...what do you want?" the small cloud said in an alarmed voice.

"We have just concluded a council meeting concerning your anti-social behavior," thundered the largest cloud. "You have been convicted, in a fair trial before your peers, of treason and other unspecified crimes against cloud society and have officially been branded a danger to the status quo. The cloud council, in a generous show of kindness has sentenced you to be incorporated into the slave ranks."

The small cloud was thunderstruck. "But you can't," he cried. "I have no wish to be a slave."

"Nevertheless, you must. You have forfeited your rights by your dangerous behavior."

"I'll run," said the small cloud as he darted down a gully and squeezed through a low pass into the next valley.

"Your flight is useless," the big clouds called. "There is no place to hide. We will get you eventually and incorporate you forcibly."

The small cloud continued to flee, staying low to the earth; several times he left parts of himself snagged among the branches of trees or in jagged pockets in the rocks. The other small clouds watched from a distance, but they were afraid and none offered to help him. The big clouds continued to pursue, but they were in no hurry; they knew that eventually they would corner him and have their way.

The small cloud dodged and skipped through the mountains until he had lost much of his strength; tiny sobs of thunder escaped him and rain fell from him like tears. Tired and exhausted, he allowed himself to be maneuvered to a point between two peaks where he discovered that he was trapped. The big clouds formed a solid wall behind him, and before him lay the dry side with the endless plain stretching away forever.

"Well, now," chuckled a big cloud, advancing slowly and arrogantly toward him. "After all this fuss, it has come down to a simple choice that you must make: either accept slavery, or cross the line to the dry side. It's up to you. Either way, we win."

The small cloud hesitated for a moment, but there was no doubt which alternative he would choose. "At least I shall die defiantly," he shouted at the big clouds. "I will not submit." With that, he took a final deep breath of the cool mountain air and plunged over the divide to the dry side. He heard the other small clouds gasp behind him, and the big clouds shouted for him to come back and not be a fool.

The shock of the dry side made him dizzy at first, and he felt himself starting to dissolve at an alarming rate. This is the end of me, he thought. But perhaps if I go bravely, it will inspire those other small clouds, and I will not have died in vain.

Rather than scramble to get back across the ridge to the green side as other trapped clouds had done, the small cloud sailed straight out into the hot dry air above the plain. He tried to conceal his fear, because he wanted to appear brave for the benefit of those watching.

"Please don't let me break down and show my cowardice," he prayed.

He dwindled fast as he proceeded out over the scorching plain. He felt himself shrink in the dry air. It was strange, he thought, that there was no pain; there was merely a weakness, a lightness; and of course there was the unpleasant fear. He shrank and dwindled and dissolved, first to half of his original size, then to a wisp, and then to a speck of fluff that didn't even cast a shadow on the ground below. He was so dehydrated that he could not even shed a tear. "This is the end," he whispered just before he fainted.

When he regained his senses much later, he was doubly surprised; first because he still existed, and second because he felt a slight thermal updraft rising from the desert floor. It was not a strong current, and what moisture was in it was warm and thin, not like the damp cool drafts in the mountains; but it was honest and nourishing. The small cloud, the tiny cloud now, felt a surge of energy and he began to grow very slightly.

He gazed back toward the mountains, but they were so far behind and lay so close above the horizon that it was impossible to distinguish the mountains from the clouds above them; clouds and mountains melted together into a dark gray-blue irregularity between the horizon and the sky. The small cloud felt a twinge of loneliness and had to resist an impulse to use his newfound strength to go back.

"I'll not go back. I do not know what lies ahead of me, but I do know what lies back there. If I perish, at least I can perish on my own terms out here."

He soon discovered that there were other weak and widely scattered thermal cells rising from below, and, by picking his way carefully and hovering to gain strength before dashing rapidly to the next cell, he was able to proceed quite well across the plain.

It was an absorbing task and required such concentration that it was some time before the small cloud realized that the thermals were growing larger and stronger. The energy and moisture flowed up to him in strong currents now, and he was soon quite respectable in size again. As he drifted lazily now on the strong fresh breeze that had sprung up, he continued to build. He became sleek and smooth with fat white billows that grew and churned upward into the clear sky. He looked down and saw that the land had changed; it was flat still, but now it was moist and fertile and covered with tall grass that bent and rippled in the wind like a sea; and there were winding rivers with scattered ponds and lakes that reflected the blue sky like mirrors.

"If only the others knew," he said aloud. "If they could see, they would be amazed at how big the world is."

The excitement of this marvelous adventure completely offset his loneliness, and, when the sun settled below the now unbroken horizon behind him, he rejoiced in his aloneness. It was the wildest freest feeling he had ever experienced, and the thought that unknown pleasures and dangers lay ahead of him in the darkness was exhilarating.

He drifted all night on the quickening breeze, beneath a full bright moon at first, and later, near dawn, there was only the cool hard light from the stars to reveal faint shapes and shadows far below.

When the sun appeared once again, directly before him, he was amazed to see it emerge from behind the silhouette of a mountain range that was higher than any he had dreamed of. It stretched as far as he could see in either direction--from the southern horizon to the northern horizon. And most amazing of all, no clouds inhabited the spaces above the lofty peaks. It was a new world. The small cloud shivered when he thought of the possibilities. There was room enough in this great new world for all, and the moist updrafts over the mountains were almost unlimited.

He selected the tallest peak in the range and set right to work feeding on the nourishing updrafts along the windward slopes. He began to grow. His base spread and turned slate gray, and the rising turbulence within him produced several clean white billows that churned and climbed upward in the clear air. An exciting tension developed and discharged occasionally in a bright flash of lightning that struck the peak beneath him and made the air smell of ozone. He developed a voice, strong and deep, that boomed and echoed through the canyons and out across the plain in the direction from which he had come. He grew in all directions, but most rapidly upward; by the evening, when the sun was once again setting in the west, he had grown a column of pure white vapor that boiled and shown in the sun's rays long after the plain and the mountains were in darkness. Everything within him worked in unison to produce that most majestic and powerful of clouds, the cumulo nimbus--the thunderhead. He was no longer a small cloud, nor a big cloud either--he was a giant.

He soon topped thirty-five thousand feet, and from that height he could see the range of mountains, silhouetted on the western horizon, that he had fled the day before. He flashed tremendous lightning bolts that lit up the darkness and could be seen, he knew, by those other clouds in the old world. He could imagine them gathering at the rim of the dry side to watch the light show he was putting on and to wonder what was causing it.

All through the night he continued to grow and expand, getting stronger and more powerful with each lightning flash and thunder boom; when the dawn came again, he saw the sun long before the highest mountain peaks were aware of its approach. The bright morning sunlight illuminated his head, a rising tower of sparkling white that continued to churn upward through the fifty-thousand-foot level; higher than any cloud had ever dared stand before. The air was sharp and cold at that altitude, but he saw no limit to how high he could go with the resources of the new world. He sent great shouts of encouraging thunder rolling back across the plain to his former companions. He could imagine their wonder at the sight of him, so large and powerful now, after they had given him up for dead. It made him proud; and his new found power intoxicated him so that he did many flashy showy things that, although perhaps in poor taste, were nevertheless excusable because they were the expressions of joyous exuberant life.

"Come across and join me," he cried. "There is room for all. The passage is perilous, but the opportunities make it worth the risk. The sky's the limit here!"

At first, the other small clouds were afraid, and the big clouds scoffed and pretended to ignore the giant in the distance. But then one of the bravest small clouds took a deep breath and launched herself over the divide. She, like the first small cloud, dashed straight out into the plain. Those left behind held their breaths and watched as she dwindled and seemed on the verge of extinction; they began to murmur among themselves and to say that it was foolish to go out there to certain death. But the giant cloud, watching from his great height in the new world, shouted thunderous words of encouragement to the weakening voyager; and, when at last the nearly extinct cloud located a thermal and began to revive, the giant shook the heavens with his booming congratulations.

Other small clouds, emboldened by the successful crossing and lured by the promise of the new world, soon followed across the divide into the baked air of the dry side and dashed toward the horizon. Many of these new immigrants perished on the journey; some were too desperate to be wise, and others were just foolish to begin with. A sufficient number made the passage safely, however, to fuel the wild rumors that circulated concerning the riches in the new land and to excite the imaginations of those who remained behind. The stream of small clouds willing to take the risks and endure the hardships of crossing the plain grew steadily until the big clouds became alarmed. It began to look as if all of the small clouds were going to immigrate, and the big clouds could not tolerate that. Without small clouds to order about and to do their bidding, the big clouds would be left with nobody to pick on but each other, and that would be very inconvenient not to mention dangerous. They began to speak against the new world and the giant, counseling the small clouds to stay in the old world. "Why risk your lives to go live in the shadow of that big showoff?" they said. "There is plenty of room for you to live here, and we big clouds, because we like you and are concerned about you, will even grant you more rights so that you may have more say in your affairs."

Many small clouds listened and agreed with these things; and they nodded and said that their proper place was obviously here in the old world, for that is how it had always been. They even talked disapprovingly of the small clouds who chose to immigrate.

"Good riddance!" they sniffed. "Those who are leaving are only the rabble and the troublemakers anyway. We are better off without them."

Twice the big clouds recruited these loyal small followers into an army and set out to invade the rich new world and bring it under their direct control. But each time the new giant moved to meet them and stood, with loud thunderous warnings and devastating bolts of lightning, between them and the mountains.

"You are welcome here in peace," said the giant. "But there will be no tyranny in this world."

The big clouds returned to the old world in defeat, and when, as a result of these expeditions, they discovered their armies perished and themselves weakened and in poor health, they blamed the new giant for their condition and accused him of despotism.

In the new world, the unlimited opportunities kept all of the clouds cheerful and happy--for a while. In the midst of such abundance, a curious thing happened to the newly freed vassals: instead of capitalizing on their good fortune to build and make themselves strong, they chose to invest their time in frivolous games and bickering and other non-productive pursuits that fouled and wasted vast amounts of resources and left them with nothing to show for their efforts. When the giant, who towered above them, admonished them to settle their petty disputes and get on with the important business of developing their new home, they grumbled and complained that the giant was meddling in their affairs. The giant, who now stood at sixty thousand feet, had never stopped growing for a moment, for there was joy and freedom to be found in the effort required to push ever higher and wider.

But such industry, such power, is the surest way to create enemies in the cloud world.

"It's disgraceful how he shows and displays himself in such a vulgar uncouth manner," the other clouds said.

"He hogs all of the best air currents and keeps the best location for himself."

"It is he who prevents us from achieving strength and power."

"He treats us like children."

They had already forgotten what life was like in the old world. There were soon so many complaints against him that the giant had hardly any friends left, and he grew puzzled.

"If so many of the others say that I'm the cause of trouble, maybe they are right," he said. "After all, I am the largest strongest cloud in either world now, and even with all of the opportunity that exists, there is still a lot of misery among the clouds. Maybe it is my fault."

Finally, to assuage the guilt that he felt for being so successful, he began to help the others. He told them how he had achieved his status and offered to aid them with large donations of refined energy to get them started; but, although they accepted his donations greedily, they reviled him to the rest of cloudkind for extending charity to them. The more things progressed, the more bewildered the giant became and the more guilt he felt.

"I must indeed be a terrible cloud," he said. "I have grown so big and strong and the others are so weak; I must find some way to help them." And he redoubled his efforts.

But the more he tried, the worse things became. Finally, in desperation, he asked the others, "What do you expect of me? What must I do to gain your approval?"

"Give us your riches," they shouted back.

"But I have worked hard to get where I am. There are plenty of resources for you to grow as big as or even bigger than I if you will only stop complaining and get busy."

"That's unfair," they shouted. "We are weak and you are strong. You had all of the advantages because you were here first and occupied the only really good spot in the sky. If you divide what you have with us, so that we will all be the same, then we can begin to grow with you as happy, friendly equals."

Some of the bolder small clouds even began to cluster in close about the base of the bewildered giant.

"Things were so much simpler when I was small," the giant sighed. "It was easy to tell right from wrong then, but now everybody seems to have a different idea about justice."

In an effort to give the others a better chance, the giant gave up his position over the high peak and moved to a less favorable, but still excellent, location that the others had scorned. This, too, failed however; as soon as he vacated the favorable spot, a round of bickering and shoving and cursing broke out among the hordes of small clouds that tried to move in. The noisy scrap lasted for a long time, and when it was finally settled, nothing had changed; the occupants of the position continued to loll about and complain; they said that the giant had given them the territory because it was already ruined and there was nothing left for a cloud to live on. They knew that this was untrue, but truth was not something about which they cared much.

Meanwhile, the giant continued to grow at an almost embarrassing rate, even over the less favorable terrain. He stood now at the astounding height of seventy thousand feet. It was here that he decided to try one more time to gain the approval of his fellows: He decided to stop growing.

It was not easy to do, for there was a tremendous growth momentum to overcome; he had to quiet the pockets of turbulence, and allow the lightning to discharge within himself rather than strike the earth; he had to mute the sound of his thunder, and, most difficult of all, he had to stop growing upward.

His top flattened out into a vast, flat anvil-shaped hood that spread quickly far down wind and cast a dark shadow across the mountains and clouds far below. This hood drained and dissipated vast quantities of energy that flowed upward through the cloud like smoke being drawn up a chimney. The other clouds, who were in open revolt now against what they considered to be the mammoth cause of all their woes, were so busy attacking and clamoring far below at the base that they failed to notice the events above. When they detected a slackening in the fury of the wind, rain, and lightning at the giant's base, they cheered and shouted, "Now we've got him!", for they were silly and vain enough to believe that they could really affect the giant.

It was some time before they realized that they were assaulting a lifeless hulk.

They looked up in time to see a thin wispy gauze of ice crystals separate itself from the anvil hood and race rapidly away on the swift-moving jet stream. As they watched, a small disappointed voice wafted down to them: "If you want it so badly, you can have it."

The small clouds screamed in rage then, and in their temper, they tore the huge corpse to shreds and dispersed it into a shapeless, useless smudge that spread for great distances in all directions. They tore in among the remains, seeking to grab something of value; but without a spirit there was nothing. They were no better off than they were before, but at least they were all pretty equal; and nobody stood out much or did much of any thing except complain and steal from one another when they could.

High above and far out over a new plain, the frozen cloud spirit, small again, drifted and thought. He was disappointed and heartsick, and he did not much care what happened to him.

"Maybe freedom is not right for clouds," he sighed. "Maybe it's against cloud nature."

He was so depressed and despondent that he stayed in the jet stream for a long time; he didn't feel that he would ever want to come down again, even though he knew that he must eventually return to some sort of life.

Finally, far out at sea--he was over a sea by this time--he spotted a small island that rose alone from the blue water. He descended and approached the island from the windward side. It was only a dot on the vast ocean, being no more than five miles long and three miles wide; but there was a high cliff that forced the moist sea breezes aloft and created a nourishing updraft that rose a few hundred feet.

The small cloud, no longer frozen, stopped there, and he lives alone above the island to this day. His life is pleasant enough on balance, and he is not unhappy; but sometimes, when he thinks of the world he left behind, he sighs and weeps a bit; and the island is lush with grass and palm trees.

How shall I kill thee?

 How shall I kill thee?

 

    They are both dead now.  Frank, bloated and stiff, lies face down across the bed in the other room.  He died first.  Julie lasted almost an hour longer; she lies on the couch here in main room of the cabin where I sit.  Her eyes are open and one small lifeless hand dangles from beneath the blanket and rests, palm up and white, on the bare board floor.

    The light from the fireplace leaps and dances about the room and provides the only illumination; it does strange things with the shadows, especially those on Julie's face.  As I write, I keep imagining that I can see her change expressions out of the corner of my eye, and even through I know it is impossible, my gaze returns involuntarily, hopefully, to her face each time.

    It is unbelievably quiet.  Outside I can hear the night sounds: frogs call from the weeds at the water's edge; a whippoorwill repeats his mindless nonsense somewhere in the timber behind the cabin; and out on the lake there is the occasional slap of a fish umping.  It is so peaceful -- and so ghastly.

    Frank was my best friend.  That's all I can say about him, for those are the only words permitted to express that unique bond that sometimes develops between two men.  If he were still alive I would be reluctant and embarrassed to discuss it like this.  But he is dead, so it no longer matters.

    When we were younger, in high school, people thought it unusual that we should be such good companions.  Frank was a social person.  Open and outgoing, he loved crowds and sports and fun while I was the opposite: a studious introverted type.  But it was as if the strengths in his personality complemented the deficiencies in mine, and vice versa.  Together we formed a composite, a symbiotic associate that benefited us both.

    I met Julie much later at the university.  She was an art student, and she needed an elective to complete the requirements for her degree.  For some unknown reason she chose a sophomore biology course, and she landed in the laboratory section I supervised as a graduate assistant.  I say for some unknown reason, because she was completely confused by biology and had, in contrast to her artistic abilities, absolutely no talent in the laboratory.

    She came to me for help outside of class, and I loved her immediately.  I began to look forward with such intense anticipation to her weekly Wednesday afternoon visits to my tiny office for tutoring that all of my other work, once so important to me, suffered.  My class work was below par, and I made no progress at all on my thesis for that entire semester.  I spend long hours staring out the window or at the same page of a book while in my mind I went back and relived every detail of our most recent meeting and constructed elaborate improbable daydreams about the next.  My shyness prevented me from declaring my feelings and forced me to be content with our business-like relationship, for my fear of rejection was strong.  But as the semester waned a panic began to rise within me and I soon realized I would have to take action if I expected to continue seeing her.

    At our last meeting before final examinations, it took all of my courage to blurt out, in a quavering voice, an awkward invitation to dinner.  She accepted with such undisguised pleasure that I laughed aloud in pure unbelieving joy after she had gone.

    I saw Julie as often as possible after that, and my love for her continued to grow and increased to near worship.  That she could love me in return was a thought so inconceivable I dared not even dream it.

    But she did, and within six months we were married.

    Oddly enough, rather than becoming a wedge between Frank and I, Julie added a new cohesive facet that drew the three of us closer together, so that we formed an inseparable group, a family.  Frank and Julie were like brother and sister with all of the teasing and banter that always accompanies such relationships.  Julie liked to scold and cluck over Frank's sometimes exotic love life.  Since he occupied the apartment directly across the courtyard from ours, it was impossible not to notice the varied and ever changing parade of young women he dated.

    "When are you going to stop fooling around and settle down?" Julie would demand severely.

    "You know there's only one woman I could ever truly love," he would respond with an exaggerated wink.  "And she's taken."

    Frank took a degree in engineering, and he worked nights for a local manufacturer; I continued to study and teach at the university; and Julie painted.  She had converted an extra bedroom into a studio, and she spent her days in there with brushes and paints and canvas.  Her paintings were the subject of much animated debate among the three of us.

    Frank praised her efforts and had several he especially liked hanging in his apartment; but, just as Julie had no aptitude for science, I had no eye for art.  When she displayed a newly completed creation for our comments, I invariably asked, "What is it?"  Her canvasses, filled with colors and, at best, barely recognizable shapes, made no sense to my pragmatic scientific mind.  "Why don't you paint a picture of a tree or a sailboat, or even a bowl of fruit?" I would ask.  "Something I can recognize."

    "Insensitive biological slob," she would mutter in mock disgust.

    She displayed her paintings in several local exhibits, and as I was as proud and thrilled as she was each time someone bought one.

    For two years the three of us continued together.  Our friendship and happiness were unbroken, or so it seemed to me, and I don't know for how long we might have gone on like that if I had not make the discovery that forced me to the edge of madness and beyond.

    But let me just tell what happened.

    I returned to the apartment one morning just over a month ago to pick up some notes I needed for an experiment.  Turning the corner of the building, I saw Julie come out of our apartment and, for some reason I cannot name, I stepped behind some shrubbery before she saw me.  What possessed me to do it?  I don't know, but locking back, I think I expected her to come toward me, and I must have planned to step out and surprise her.  So much has happened since then, I can no longer be sure what was in my mind.  I only know I watched in shocked disbelief as she crossed the courtyard and let herself into Frank's apartment.

    I don't know how long I stood there, and I can't describe the thoughts clamoring inside my head.  Frank slept during the day, and I knew he must have been home.  The implications of what I just witnessed were almost more than I could bear, and as I wandered aimlessly back toward the campus, I forced myself to believe there was an innocent logical explanation for it all.

    I called our number later in the day, and it rang twelve times before I hung up.

    That night when I got home, Julie met me at the door as usual, and I waited expectantly, ready to believe her explanation of why she had been in Frank's apartment.  But she didn't mention it.  When I finally said I had called and received no answer, she looked confused for just a second before she recovered, smiled and said she had needed some more paint and had gone out for a while.  She lied to me.  I wanted to leap up and scream, "Liar!" but the situation and the hurt were so dreamlike, so unreal, that I found myself unable to say anything; I stood there, mute, struggling to control the fearful emotions that swelled within my breast.

    After that, suspicion took complete control of me; I waited in concealment each morning to watch her make the trip across the courtyard.  In the evenings when we three were together, their banter took on a second -- a hidden-- meaning for me that inflamed my already wounded pride.  Soon, the first seeds of hatred began to germinate and angry visions of revenge began to dance before my eyes.

    I considered going to the apartment to confront them and to accuse them with my knowledge.  If I had loved either of them less, I would have done just that, and none of this would have happened.  But there is a kind of equation that governs such things, and it states that greater love turns to greater pain turns to greater hate.  By the time I reached the third stage in the equation, nothing short of terrible revenge would satisfy me.  Form that moment, I began to plot murder.  That very statement shows the extent of my evil derangement.

    My first impulse was to get a gun and simply burst in and shoot them.  But hatred, held in check long enough, makes one cunning and shrewd as well as dangerous, and I decided to find a safer, more elegant, way to pay them back.  My reasoning went something like this: In order to succeed, to achieve true revenge, I would have to kill them in such a way that I could not be blamed for their deaths.  To kill them and not have to pay for it would be the sweetest revenge of all.  And furthermore, they would have to be aware as they died that I was responsible.  Only then, I thought, would our debt be settled.

    With these parameters as a guide, I set about the task of finding the proper method to achieve my goal.  In the days that followed I examined and rejected such crude and inferior schemes as accidental fires, defective automobile brakes and anonymous bombs.  When I got around to poison, I started to dismiss it too, as too risky, too traceable; but then my knowledge of biology provided the answer I had been searching for: Clostridium botulinum! Even the name had an evil rhythm, and I knew immediately I had the found the way to commit the perfect murder.

    C. botulinum is the tiny invisible microorganism responsible for the deadly disease known as botulism.  The organism is common in the soil and mud throughout the world., and it produces, as a byproduct of its metabolism, the most potent natural poison known.  Microscopic quantities of this powerful toxin, when ingested by man, are fatal.  The most common sources of botulism are improperly canned vegetables and spoiled meat, and the only that that prevents the disease from being more common is the fact that the organism and its toxin are relatively delicate.  Acidity destroys or inactivates the organism itself, and the toxin, a protein, is easily inactivated by heat.  But nevertheless, enough people are stricken and die often enough from the malady to be significant.  If my unfaithful wife and her lover, my best friend, were to eat some tainted food, and if they were to subsequently die of botulism, a perfectly natural "accident", how could I be blamed?

    It was a simple matter for me to do the necessary research in the university library, and to prepare, unnoticed in the laboratory, the proper nutrient medium to grow and isolate the organism.  Within a few days, I had collected a flask of thick brownish fluid that contained enough of the deadly toxin to kill every human in the city.  I poured a small vial full of the fluid, stoppered it tightly, and dropped it into the inside pocket of my coat.  I locked the flask with the remaining poison in the lower drawer of my desk, just in case something went wrong and more was needed.

    Then I devised the rest of my plan.

    From my research, I learned the poison normally takes anywhere from twelve to seventy-two hours to do its work, depending on the quantity ingested, and since I expected to administer large doses to Frank and Julie, I figured a weekend would be plenty of time to carry out my design.  I would need to have them isolated from civilization to prevent their signaling for help, so I would suggest a weekend here at the cabin.  The cabin is owned by a naturalist colleague of mine at the university and we had often borrowed it before, so there was nothing unusual to arouse suspicion.  Wilderness surrounds the cabin and there are no neighbors for miles in either direction along the lake shore.  They would be totally at my mercy.

    I would poison them, and later, when I took their bodies back, I would claim I too had been stricken with a mild attack of food poisoning and had been too ill to go for help.  A sufficient percentage of botulism cases recover to make my story plausible.  It was a beautiful plan, a fool-proof plan, and it worked perfectly.  Even now, I take a horrible perverse satisfaction from that.

    All I had to do when we arrived here at the cabin last night was to empty the contents of the vial into a bowl of potato salad Julie had prepared as part of the our late supper.  Then I waited.  I lay in the bed beside Julie, unable to sleep, filled with anticipation of my coming triumphant revenge.

    I will not, indeed I cannot, describe the agonizing deaths they suffered early this morning.  I shudder at the insane delight I took in their suffering.  Before they died I carried them in and placed them side by side on the couch.  Then, I paced back and forth.

    By that time they were too weak to help themselves, and they pleaded with me to get them to a doctor.  Their heads lolled crazily because the poison had already blocked the nerve paths controlling the muscles in their necks.

    "Wh...why are you...doing this?" Julie managed to choke out.

    That's when I told them the truth.  I don't remember what I said, only that I shouted and laughed wildly and wouldn't let them speak until I had poured out all of the pain and hatred I had stored over the past weeks.  When I was finished, I stood triumphantly before them, relishing my revenge and the horrified expressions on their faces.

    "Gus... you fool!" Frank said.  It was increasing more difficult for them to speak as more nerve pathways were destroyed.

    "I was in... Frank's apartment...painting," Julie wheezed.

    "What?" I could not comprehend what she was trying to tell me.

    "Your birthday...next week...you said you wanted a painting you could understand...I was working on your present... a landscape...couldn't work at home, you might see... Frank let me work in his living room... while he slept."

    The meaning of what she said struck me like a blow and I refused to believe it. "You lie!"

    I grabbed her shoulders and shook her; her head flopped violently on her nerveless neck.  "You're lying! You're just saying that to cheat me!"

    "She's telling the truth," Frank said.

    I didn't want to believe it.  I looked from one to the other, hoping to detect some clue that they were lying to me. But their expressions were meaningless now, the eyes fixed rigidly, the facial muscles limp and useless.

    I don't recall much of what happened after that.  I remember a growing sense of horror, and I remember that Frank died a few minutes later; I carried him into the bedroom and dumped him on the bed.  My mind, a turmoil of grief and hate and disbelief, was totally paralyzed, and I could not decide what to do.  I laid Julie out on the couch and covered her with the blanket.  She did not speak again before she died.

    I tried to convince myself they had lied to me, that I was right in what I had done, but by then the madness had complete control of me and I paced about the cabin gesturing wildly and talking loudly, illogically, to the two stiffening corpses.

    Sometime during the day, my wildness subsided into a quieter more rational form of grief and I calmly made what I considered the only proper choice open to me:  I would seek to atone for my horrible mistake by imposing the same fate upon myself that I had decreed for my wife and friend.  The flask of poison locked in my desk back at the university provided a simple means for me to accomplish my self destruction.  I took Frank's keys and drove back to the city in his car.

    Once again my memory grows sketchy and I don't remember the trip clearly.  I recall I wept and whispered to myself and drove very badly on the way in.

    But on the way back, I laughed and shouted and waved at the few other astounded motorists that I encountered.  I drove recklessly and giggled hysterically as I slid the car around curves, barely missing trees and bridge abutments.

    It was dark again by the time I arrived back here at the cabin.  After a time I regained sufficient control of myself to build a fire in the fireplace and to sit down here at the table to write this account.

    I must end quickly now, for the evil fluid that I drank is doing its work.  Already my vision is starting to blur and my throat and lips are sore and dry.

    It won't take much longer.

    But before I stop, I must explain why I am still occasionally wracked by uncontrollable laughter:  You see, after I had unlocked the desk drawer and forced myself to take a long nauseous sacrificial pull from the flask, I decided to fetch the paining that had been the cause of this disastrous circumstance.  I, in my state of guilt, thought it would be somehow just to bring it back here as an ironic symbol of the love that had existed between the three of us.

    I drove to Frank's apartment, and let myself in -- and that's when the fits of laughter began.

    There was no painting.

    I entered the bedroom and the bed was still unmade, as if the inhabitants had only recently departed.  There was a pair of Julie's sandals lying askew beside the bed and the familiar smell of her still pervaded the trysting place.

    That is the story, concluded just in time, for I am having difficulty with the pen now and wish to seek a comfortable place to endure my final blissful agony.  There is room on the couch beside Julie.  Perhaps I will join her there beneath the blanket in one final meaningless embrace.

    It is all so incredibly funny.