Category Archives: Mid-life

The Schneiders

I ran into my neighbor, Mr. Schneider, on my way out the door the other night. At eighty-eight years, he’s older than I am but seems to be doing well and he also seems to be a good fellow. We’ve had a few talks about whisky and family and dancing. He drives a van with a church bumper sticker on the front and regularly takes it out for a spin going who-knows-where but probably going to church and getting things to eat. He and the Mrs. are small people and can’t eat much, though I think he likes candy.

Last Halloween I opened my front door to check on the level of treats in the large wooden bowl I had sitting out there, and surprised him; catching him with his hand deep in the sweets, that guilty hand looking like a kid half-buried in those old ball-bowls at Chuck E. Cheese’s. We nodded.

Mrs. Schneider, who’s probably about the same age as her mate, had a medical event a while back and ended up in the hospital for nearly a month. Mr. Scheider would drive the 80-mile round trip every day to visit her. I knew he missed her, even more so when I met him at the mailbox one day and found him wearing a burgundy dress, complete with thin little bra straps showing at the shoulder. He wasn’t smiling and, as I said, I knew he was lonely. It’s a short walk to the mailbox and there’s not much exposure. We talked for a few minutes, neither one of us saying a thing about the obvious or unusual. 

He shuffles when he walks and it’s a very slow shuffle. He’s being careful and that makes good sense. When the snow and ice came, he made sure to use at least one hiking stick to steady himself, but he still shuffled. I’ve never seen him shuffle further than his car – except for the one time I ran into him at the Meijers. We talked that time also, but I’m not certain he knew who I was.

I took a walk a while back. I wore good, treaded boots and my long burgundy overcoat. I don’t shuffle but I like to think I take care. I should say that it was both snowy and icy out and that I don’t use a hiking stick. Coming to a road to cross, I checked both ways, saw no traffic, and started across. I woke up sometime later, flat on my back in the middle of the road, three or four cars stopped, forming a protective wall around me, and two or three people kneeled near me, asking if I was okay or if I needed help. I could see my glasses clearly, lying about ten feet away, too far to crawl but crystal clear as if the fall had sharpened my vision; a lady got them for me. Two guys helped me up and asked if I needed anything. In my mind, I said, “Yes, please, someone take me home.” Outwardly, I said, “No, but thanks for what you’ve done,” and I cut my walk short and shuffled back home.

I haven’t seen Mr. Schneider in a few days.

Mommy Issues

Most of us learn through relationships but if you have unresolved issues with your parents, don’t kill your partner; kill your parents, and I mean that metaphorically.

Hard Times

I am, by no means, an enlightened person.

I think it was Sketcho Shiva who said something along the lines that it’s human nature to want to attach a story to events thus creating an anchor that provides a sense of certainty in turbulent times. This is the foundation of a lot of religious dogma and belief. If something is not understood, create a story around that space to provide a sense of comfort.

We know that Trump has brought our society to a point where previously abnormal expression has been normalized. Part of the result of this is that fringe-thinkers, now more than ever, feel comfortable in making known their theories.

I have a friend who’s spent his life studying his soul and spirit. He considers himself highly evolved because of his effort. Today, he sees as expert persons with little credibility (if you really research their backgrounds) and sees as conspirators and liers persons who have spent their lives becoming experts in a field. Is that a contradiction?

In the face of highly detailed prose with characters and colored hats and world domination about billionaires needing more, I still subscribe to the thought that the simplest explanation is most often the correct explanation.

It’s a cliche but I observe in you, my friend, a certain smugness that comes from being confident in ingnorance. Of course, I doubt that I know what I’m talking about.

I am gathering a lot of material for my next novel. Thanks.


Chapter 17 – Gypsy

I and my Father are one.

Jesus Christ

 

              When Monday came, the shadows didn’t have far to run because the low clouds lay in a heap near the ground, blocking out the light that would have been.  It wasn’t until he neared the parking garage at work that the tipping point was reached and the suspended water turned to rain.

              “The clouds aren’t weeping for her, they’re indifferent,” thought Walter

              In the operators’ lounge and Dispatch, not one person spoke to Walter.  No one asked him a question or spoke a greeting but he could tell that they all knew.  As if something was happening to his vision, he sensed that the aura of the room kept shifting, moving from muddy blue to muddy gray and then almost blending into black before the sensations passed. Whatever had pulled back in Walter was still withdrawn and he felt numb but could hear the sparrows in the steel rafters and the sound of the drivers’ shoes as they walked across the floor and the low murmur of voices behind him.

              It was his usual time. He was to be driving his usual route. He drew Gypsy and was, in a small way, thankful for that.

              He was on autopilot.  Everything was automatic.  At the correct time he aimed his body in the correct direction and went to the correct lane to find the faithful elephant.

              “Hey Girl,” he said, touching her above her headlights as he walked to the front door.

              He did his Pretrip and she looked fine until it came time to pop the brake and rock her.  The brake initially held but then slipped and she lurched forward.

              “Fuck,” he said to the air.

              Walter picked up the bus phone and waited for Jim, in Dispatch, to respond.

              “What’s up?” Jim asked.

              “This is Walter.  I’m on bus 256 in lane 16.  There’s something wrong with the brakes,” Walter informed him.

              “Wait there.  I’ll get Maintenance,” Jim said.

              It was only a few seconds until two of the more senior mechanics came out of their shop and walked across the cement floor to Gypsy. Walter was still sitting in the driver’s seat and had his window fully opened.

              “What’s the problem?” one of them asked.

              “When I tested the air-brake, it failed,” Walter said, “Should I get another bus?”

              “You don’t use a 10lb fire extinguisher to put out a 5lb fire,” was their answer, “we’ll fix it.”

              They fiddled around under the front wheels on both sides, holding a whispering conversation with each other, and then worked through the side panel and the engine compartment, before coming back to Walter’s window.

              “She’s good now. You can go,” said the older Wrench, looking cocky, a smudge of grease under his left eye.

              Walter was already five minutes late so he buckled back up, shut the doors, shifted into gear, honked his horn and took Gypsy through the door and out of the garage, headed for his first stop.

              “I don’t know why I’m even doing this,” ran through his mind.

              As he headed down the road, he saw a black man walking east on Fulton Street, wearing a life-vest.

              “Mara died last week,” his mind said.

              He came to New Campus and picked up the kids.

              “You’re late,” one of them said as he boarded.

              Walter just stared at him before saying, “You’re right.”

              The rain had let up slightly but the sky was still too dark to think that it had ended for the day.

              The morning runs were routine except for the rain and the wind that seemed to have increased markedly form the week before.  The students appeared to be devoted to their classes and ridership was pretty high, sometimes requiring students to stand in the isle since all of the seats were taken.

              One rider, obviously not a student, rang the stop bell but Walter didn’t immediately pull over because he wasn’t at lollipop yet; the Free-rider stood up and walked to the yellow line.

              “You missed my stop!” he yelled, “Wake your ass up!”

              Walter stopped quickly, the brakes fading with the water, opened the door and pointed.  There was something in his eyes that told the guy just to shut up and get off.

               “I’m quitting today,” is what Walter’s mind finally arrived at.

              He had fallen back into a daze, no longer even pretending to be in control.  He wasn’t aware of his thoughts.  He was probably thinking about Mara and his life ahead without her.  He skipped his lunch and never used the head.  He sat in the driver’s seat his entire shift, a change from his normal routine of getting out and stretching at every opportunity.  When the students got on, he had to press a button on the fare box to keep count and he usually looked into their eyes and greeted them as he did so. That day he counted shoes rather than eyes.

              “Get used to it, kids.  You’re just a number,” he thought.

              On his last outbound run, his favorite young woman got on.  Her shoes were soaked but he could instinctually tell it was she.  He looked up.  She had on a soft, lavender colored blouse that brightened the area around her and she carried an umbrella.  Even with the rainshade her hair had gotten slightly wet and was in the process of curling.

              “It only makes her cuter,” he thought but the words came through a mist; not a mist from the moisture in the air but one from whatever it was that was shutting his brain down.

              He thought he greeted her but, based on her look and lack of response, he might not have.  She hesitated for a moment but then, pushed by the students getting on behind her; she moved on and took a seat.  He could see her legs and lap in his round overhead mirror.

              The bus pulled out.  Gypsy was being her usual, good self; she had to be, Walter wasn’t really there.

              When he stopped for the train tracks and opened his doors, he looked left and then right and, as he did so, he saw a sports utility vehicle ignore Gypsy’s four-way flashers and pass him on the right, barely squeezing through, racing and bouncing over the railroad tracks.  He couldn’t tell if it was a guy or a girl driving, it looked like a redheaded Jughead from the Archie comics.  He could tell that the driver’s window was rolled down, even in the rain, and the driver was speaking over a blue-tooth in an animated way.  Walter’s hard wiring tried to gauge how attractive it was, using both genders but nothing clicked.  None of the passengers seemed to notice.

              The morning was starting to feel surreal.  Up ahead of him, he could see the SUV make a right turn from the left turn lane.

              “What the fuck?” said his mind again.

              Walter was aware that he was wounded.  He had been wounded before but as far as he knew, this time the wound might prove to be fatal.  He felt a sudden heaviness and, once he realized it, he thought that he might not be able to keep on driving.   He thought about calling Dispatch and asking for a relief driver.  He thought about just pulling Gypsy over, setting her brakes, and leaving.

              “There’s no lesson in this,” he murmured.

              In his mirror, he saw the knees of the girl shift, as if she’d heard him.  It made him think of her and the life still animating her form and it brought him back, a bit, and the heaviness lifted from him just a little.

              The most surreal thing, so far, happened next.  There were loops of a cloverleaf interchange that fed vehicles to and from the expressway that passed through River City.  Route 60 didn’t use those ramps, but it passed under the highway and within sight of those feeders.  As Gypsy approached the underpass, a tractor-trailing rig slid on the wet surface of the highway, as it rounded the curve of the off ramp, and jumped over the guardrail.  Some of the passengers saw it and starting yelling.  In the time it took Walter to realize what was happening, the entire eighteen-wheeler was pulled over the rail and came crashing sixty feet to the ground. 

              There were many other cars with drivers closer to the crash site than Gypsy was, and there was nothing, really, that Walter could have done to be of assistance, other than to call Dispatch and report the incident, which he did.  The angle was too sharp for Gypsy’s camera’s to have caught anything and Walter could see cars stopped and people rushing to the truck.

              “Just keep on route.  We’ll let you know if the police need to talk with you,” said Jim, in Dispatch.

              Walter pulled the overhead microphone down and announced to the passengers that emergency personnel were on their way and would take care of the accident.  There seemed to be a hundred conversations going on in the space behind him.

              He drove up the hill, past the Realty building where no passengers waited.  The rain was still light and a herd of Wrens or an exaltation of Larks, as usual, flew past the windshield in front of Gypsy.  Walter said that seeing the birds always brought him back to Presence but all he saw, then, were black spots moving in the sky. The Watcher sitting behind everything that was Walter remained distant.  The brakes seemed to feel softer and less effective, fading more often when he made his approaches to the stops.

              “A little water on the wheels,” he thought, but then, “I should have checked them again, after Maintenance fixed them.”

              They continued and made good time and the five minutes that he had lost at the start were long since made up.  At the turnoff behind the Fire station, Gypsy sat alone for three minutes, no inbound bus in sight.  They pulled out, turned right and headed to the final stop before the long, fast run down to the river and then back up to the campus turn.  At the last stop, six who were obviously students got on, as well as one who didn’t appear to be a student. He thought about asking her for her college ID, not to cause her problems but out of curiosity and for a lesson to himself.

              “She might be a professor,” went through his head, “or my second ex-wife.”

              She was older, probably in her sixties and fast approaching her seventies. Her pants were too short but they matched her top. For some, by that time, they know it’s a ruse and the floppers’ cartoon outfit doesn’t mean a thing.  For others, it’s just another sign that they’re doing the best they can on their trip to no-where. She had double sized lips; the brick red lipstick had more than missed its mark and the rogue and eye shadow completed her costume.  Walter didn’t know where she stood on the dream’s continuum but he let her ride for free.

              “As long as they give you a good story,” Marti would say and though that passenger didn’t speak, her appearance did give him a good story.

              There was also a younger woman at that stop and though the rain had been light for the past half-hour, she seemed to be out of place for the weather.  He knew it was trend but she was in flannel pajamas, wearing slippers and a hoodie and holding a 16oz bottle of Mt. Dew.

              “Are you getting on?” he asked.

              She looked at him with a blank stare and then walked away from the stop.

              The light was green and the passengers were all secure so he closed the doors and started forward.  Gypsy lurched, almost stopped, and made a chirping sound not unlike the one that Zoë used to make when she became excited by the birds.

              “What’s up, Girl?” he thought.

              He was becoming more present, and he knew it, but felt bad, in a way, as if he was being disloyal to Mara by suspending his grief for those few moments.

              “I love you,” his lips and tongue mimed, and he could see a mind-trace of her smiling as she walked along the beach.

              A tractor-trailer sped by, spraying water from its tires and frame.  High across the back of the gray aluminum box of the big rig, the letters G R I M were painted. 

              Gypsy picked up speed and, as usual, as she did so the cicadas started in with their song. There was a strong gust of wind from the north and then it passed and a flock of black birds flew by, large enough in number to make him take notice and see them as more than black dots against the sky.

              “They’re going the wrong direction,” Walter observed, wondering how they could move so rapidly against the wind.

              There was another strong gust and it pushed against Gypsy’s body, moving her to the left.  Walter held tightly to the wheel and brought her back.  He saw the black skulls around his wrist and remembered his death and its place in his life.

              “Thank you,” he said out loud.

              The lavender girl shouted, “What? We’ll be okay, right Walter?”

              “What is she talking about? How’s she know my name?” he furrowed his brow, wondering.

              “This is nothing.  It’ll be okay.  I’ll have you there soon,” he said.

              The rain hammered down upon the road a thousand yards in front of them, and then stopped and immediately a straight-line wind crashed through, tearing down eighty-foot tall trees and utility poles with their wires, toppling the row of tall, narrow wooden forms like dominoes.

              Gypsy was up to the speed limit now, doing fifty-five, and she was talking to him, saying things she’d never said before. The rain started again.  There was a flash of light and he saw an image reflected in the windshield but it was too bazaar for his mind to accept and he was too busy with the wheel and the weather to give it much thought.

              The rain came harder.  Walter knew that the weather had been bad but now he knew that the heavens were weeping; that they finally got the message and could no longer live with their denial.

                  They had passed 18th Avenue and were on the downhill run to the river, still travelling at 55mph.

                  “Maybe I should slow down,” he thought but, while the brakes were questionable, the road didn’t seem too slick and the heavy weight of the bus usually kept it from hydroplaning.

                  Someone rang the stop bell.  He looked at his inside mirror and every face he saw was drained of color.  No one was talking anymore; they all seemed…afraid?

                  “Kids,” Walter thought, “Their brains aren’t even fully formed yet.”

                  “Here…Now…This,” his breath became deeper, more regular.

                  There were weird sounds, not just from the chassis shaking and the engine vibrating and more than just the hissing of the tires tearing through the water, trying to hold on.  The air was pushing through the driver’s side window, like the fingers of a cold and fearsome hand, trying to grab the wheel and pull it from Walter’s grip. He shoved the window shut.

                  First he thought, ”I’ll slow down,” and then, “Maybe I should stop.”

He pushed the floor pedal but the brakes were weak, too weak.  The weather was getting worse, darker, the rain heavier and the wind stronger, screaming at them.  Inside his numb body he felt the beginning of some excitement and a small ember started a fire in the pit of his stomach.

Gypsy raced through the storm and, “It’s all just an illusion,” raced through his mind.

In the outside mirrors he could see the headlights of cars pulling to the side of the road and fading behind him as they stopped and he sped on.  In the inside mirrors it looked like a mineshaft.  His vision had narrowed to a tunnel like the first time he’d made a combat jump and all he could see were his boots and the earth, spinning below; now, all he could see was the isle between the seats, something lavender, and a red light glowing in the back wall of the bus, showing the cabin temperature, 72 degrees.

He turned his head and looked out of the side window.  Everything was dark even though it wasn’t time to be dark.  The water was flying off of the road, fanning out from the trough the tires made, throwing spay as high as the roof of the bus.  He started feeling anxious and then realized, there was nothing he could do anyway; it was all up to the driver of the bus; and then he realized, he was the driver of the bus.

“Walter!” was it Gypsy?

“WALTER!!!” it was the girl in the lavender blouse.

In the mirror everything and everyone was dark gray going to black; everyone except the girl in lavender.  It was like a light was shining on her.  She was pure, beautiful, radiant…and alive.

“THE BRIDGE, LOOK AT THE BRIDGE!” she yelled, one hand holding the frame of the bus seat, the other arm extended, her hand pointing forward.

Through the pouring rain and the darkness, straight ahead in the beam of Gypsy’s lights, the road was flaking and crumbling, shifting up and then down as if the earth was actually in upheaval.  There was a sudden, bright flash of lightening just as the asphalt started cracking, the yellow line reshaping itself from the solid, no-passing zone to a dashed line.

“Please pass,” Walter thought, “for her sake if no-one else’s.”

He pushed hard on the brake pedal and got nothing in return.

“This is it,” he thought.

He reached to his left and yelled,” HANG ON,” just before he pulled up on the air brake.

Nothing!

Ahead, the bridge was starting to collapse.

“This is going to be a Non-preventable Incident,” his head calmly said.

Her brakes were gone.  She kept speeding.  The bridge was falling. There was only one solution; he had to go off-route.  He couldn’t see any traffic coming towards him in the opposing lane so he started to shift Gypsy over that way, thinking that he could run her down the grass field to the left of the road, hopefully sinking into the muddy regolith and stopping her before hitting the river and without doing too much damage to his cargo.

               “You don’t need to remind me,” he thought, seeing the skulls wrapped around his left wrist, the hand covered with his driving glove, gripping and turning the wheel. 

              Off of the asphalt they flew, literally.  Gypsy had momentarily left the ground.

              “Dumbo,” Walter’s mind was working.

              She landed in the field, crashing down on her front right knee, the one she knelt on.  It collapsed and, as it did, everything started to slow down.  Walter looked into his inside mirror and could see only the girl in lavender; she was crying.

              There were tearing sounds as the front door flew off.  The windshield, designed to be kicked out as an emergency exit, flexed and then popped away leaving the bus completely unprotected from the air that was rushing towards it, the rain, and bits and pieces of grass and dirt as Gypsy tore up the field.  Ahead and to his right, Walter could see the bridge supports holding but the flat of the road falling in large chunks, attacking the river.

              “Walter,” he heard.

              “Mara,” he thought.

              The river was high, deep green but not pretty, moving rapidly towards the north and west, trying to spill into the big lake a hundred miles away.  Gypsy hit the surface of the water, and like a stone thrown to skip, she slid her length across the murky fluid, turning, twisting, and crying as the current pushed her into the concrete pier. 

              “Marti’s going to miss this bus,” rang a voice inside his head.

              Walter could see the cold water starting to pour into the open front of the bus as her movement stalled.  He reached for the release on his safety belt and pushed it just as something large, a floating tree, hit Gypsy’s roof and knocked him through the portal where the windshield had been.

              His head hit something.  Behind his eyelids, his brain began bouncing against the inside of his skull and his mind became overwhelmed and shut down like a circuit breaker.

              “Somebody had to pay,” he heard as everything started to go black, and then, “The violence done to protect secrets.”


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-…Let the breath flow out… –

 

 

 

 

Chapter 16 – Walk On

Dying is a wild night and a new road.
Emily Dickinson

It was May 3rd, a Thursday, and Walter had agreed to work an additional shift when another driver unexpectedly called in sick right before Walter’s first shift ended. Dispatch caught Walter as he was turning in his time card and requested that he take the run, which began a half-hour later. He called home and, when Mara didn’t pick up, he left a voice-mail message letting her know what was up.

“Hey Baby, it’s me. I’m working an extra four-hour shift tonight so I won’t be home until late. I’ll buy you a new car with the money. I hope you’re doing okay. I love you.”

“She’s probably watching Dexter or already knocked out by her pills,” he imagined.

The earth moved, at that moment, but Walter didn’t notice it until later when it moved again, and by then it was too late.

He joined two other drivers for the shuttle ride from the garage over to Central Station where he would wait until the Route 21 came in. It was a busy route with passengers usually standing at the lollipops at every stop, even though they’re only a block apart, and always one or two wheel chair riders.

When a wheelchair rider wants on, there are a couple of spots right behind the driver, on each side of the isle, where the seats fold up and a wheelchair can be latched for safety. If passengers were sitting in those seats, the bus operator would request that they get up and make room but it wasn’t a requirement. Some passengers knew they didn’t have to move, so they wouldn’t, but most people were considerate enough to make room. If the existing passengers wouldn’t move, the driver would have to tell the wheelchair rider that there was no safe room, and then phone it in to Dispatch so that the next bus coming along would be given a heads up. In rare cases, The River would send out a small vehicle to pick up the stranded wheelchair rider. If there was room, the driver would have to deploy the handicap ramp, let the wheelchair rider maneuver into a spot, and then, after asking permission and giving warning, fasten four strong nylon woven straps with metal hooks to the chair and then tighten them.

“Would you like the seatbelt also?” the drivers were required to ask. Almost no one wanted it, feeling that they were secure enough in their familiar chair.

The process took some time and slowed the bus down and added to the delays caused by the passenger load. Walter stood under the Teflon-coated fiberglass rood of Central Terminal while he waited, protected from the heavy rain that seemed like it had been falling for weeks. There was a black man standing near him, wearing a black fedora, a red shirt buttoned up to his neck, a red and black checkered vest, black slacks and shoes; looking sharp. Walter had seen him before.

“What’s up with this rain?” Walter asked.

“Highest spring rainfall on record, 42 inches over the past year,” Fedora answered, “following the highest snow fall on record, 83 inches this winter.”

“Man! So much for global warming,” Walter responded.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Fedora said, “The melt came late. Probably be a lot of flooding.”

“There’s my ride,” Walter said, nodding towards bus no. 291, Route 21 lit up on the overhead sign.

“You riding with me?” Walter asked.

“Not today,” came the reply.

The inbound passengers off-loaded, as did the previous driver, telling Walter that the bus was running fine and just to watch out for some heavy water accumulation at some of the intersections. Walter hopped aboard, shutting the door behind him until he could get admin taken care of.

He punched in his codes, adjusted his seat and mirrors, did a quick walk through the bus, then sat down, buckled up, and opened the door for customers.

“Welcome aboard!” he shouted.

The run, up and back, was nothing out of the ordinary except for the heavy rain. He had to adjust his interior fans and keep them on full blast, as well as keeping the driver’s side window open an inch or two, to keep the windshield from fogging up.

The rain, and the hour, seemed to keep people off of the roads and resulted in a low number of passengers, also. He finished his second split four hours later, at about 8:30, shuttled back to the garage, turned in his paperwork, and headed down to the underground garage to find his car.

As he walked through the garage, he felt a trembling under his feet and momentarily lost his balance.

“What the fuck?” he said, out loud.

By the time he pulled his Honda out of the underground parking garage, it was nearing nine but the rain had let up and was almost stopped. It was a four mile drive from there to Mara’s home and it took him just over fifteen minutes, through the city, to make the trip. There was a car on his tail, headlights on high, as he slowed to make the turn off of Michigan Ave. onto her street, so he pulled to the shoulder as he started his turn, to give them room and let them pass. As he pulled into the driveway, water pushed by the wind dropped from a tree onto his windshield, and his lights glanced across something hard to see but white lying on the pavement.

“Crazy cat,” he said to himself.

Walter stepped out of his car, leaving his driver’s bag, thinking he’d be headed back early enough, shut his door and locked it.

“Hey Shakti, what…” he started to speak but then stopped when he saw her.

She was dead; it was obvious. He didn’t describe her to me; he just said that he thought she’d finally been run over while lying there, unafraid in the driveway. Walter took off his uniform shirt and placed it on the hood of his car, then took of his white undershirt before putting his arms back through the sleeves of his uniform. He knelt down and, using his T-shirt, picked up the little vessel that he had been so attached to, folded the shirt gently and warmly around her, and carried her around the side yard, past Mara’s raised vegetable beds, to the back yard of the house. He said that he wanted her remains to be safe until the morning, when she could have a proper burial, so he put her furry body into a plastic litter canister that stood, somewhat fittingly, on the patio, and closed the lid.

The back door from the breezeway to the patio stood open, which wasn’t usual but also wasn’t alarming; Mara often left it open, giving her cats easy passage, but usually only during the day.

“She was probably out for a smoke and forgot to close it,” is what he said he had thought.

The door from the breezeway to the hall of the kitchen also stood open and, as he passed through, he noticed that the two nightlights that they turned on by habit each night were not shining. Something inside of Walter started to pull back.

He checked the living room and saw that the television was off. He could see Shiva lying on the pad in the bay window, partially lit by the streetlight, and knew that something odd was up. Shiva would either have jumped up to great him or would have been long gone into the night at that hour.

Walter walked softly down the hall to Mara’s door and gently pushed it open. He could see her form, lying on her right side in her normal fetal position, most of her body covered by her burgundy comforter. Near her feet but more towards his side of her bed was Zoë. She looked as if her rear legs were paralyzed, maybe broken half-way down her spine, and she tried to rise up on her front legs but couldn’t. Her head was up, her eyes looking at him. She knew who he was and she wasn’t scared. He understood that the thing that she had always feared had happened while he ferried people around the city in the dark.

“There was no need to rush,” Walter told me.

He sat down in front of Zoë, on his side of the bed. There was no movement from the form that lay on the other side, no sound of heavy breathing, no sense of life.

He put his fingers to Zoë’s brow and caressed her.

“Hey girl. It’s okay,” he whispered, “Just sleep.”

She died to this world as he sat there with her, and then he rose and took the short walk that he had feared for these past six years. I think, in reality, it was the walk that his soul knew of and the one that he feared for his entire life.

Mara’s body laid there, the form that he held so dear.

“Are you gone now? Have you disappeared?”

She was surrounded by her pill bottles, empty booze glasses, and nearby was a sketch that Jade had drawn. The room was still filled with the fragrance of incense, a gift from Sam on her birthday just passed.

He lay down beside her form and took her in his arms. Her smell was still there in her hair. He whispered to her that he understood. He whispered to her that he would miss her. He whispered to her that he had always loved her and always would.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he whispered to her as he kissed her forehead.

He heard the sound, “Goodbye” from a thousand voices, and then he heard the sweetness in the silence that remained after she was gone. Walter looked at her clock; it read 9:15 p.m. He put his lips back to her skin until hours later, when he looked at the clock again; it read 9:21 p.m.

They lay there, together, until the day pushed away the night.

He didn’t cry.

He called Dispatch and told them he wouldn’t be in that day.

“It’ll cost you three points,” they said.

“Write me up. I’m not coming in,” he emphasized.

He called the funeral home where her mother had been cremated and, per her wishes, had them come get her remains and take the shell away.

Three hundred miles away, Jade woke up and rose from her bed.

Walter thought of calling Jade’s estranged husband first and then he thought about calling her neighbors first and then he gave her the respect she deserved and he called her first.

“Hi Jade,” Walter softly said.

She knew something was wrong.

“She’s gone,” is all he had to say.

There was no response, no sound; she just hit “End” on her IPhone and sat down.

He called Sam. Sam wanted to know when, and how, and where she was. He started talking and then stopped. He drove over, bringing his lover with him. He was crying but not talking. Walter told him about Shakti, and Shiva, and Zoë, and that Ringo was nowhere to be found. Sam stood there crying harder, sobbing, and then he walked through her house and yard, looking for Ringo. Sam’s girlfriend was crying, too. Walter never cried.

That weekend, Walter stopped the world so that he could move about in it. He had known what was coming. Before the bomb went off, he had turned to face it. The part of life that dealt with death, he understood, he knew that his pain was because of his attachment to her and, I suppose, to the cats.

On Sunday, people drifted in until there were a couple dozen in her house, some breaking into tears as they gave each other hugs, only a few talking, good people thinking of her and how much they loved her but how they couldn’t reach her. One by one, they made their way to a sofa, chair, or the floor and sat until the room became quiet and still. When he felt that the time was right, Walter motioned to the motionless guests and they followed him out into her yard and garden.

To Walter, it seemed that the energy that had activated her form and now left her had been infused into the vegetables and flowers in her garden. It seemed that in the course of just the few days since she had been gone, the tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, carrots, basil, and onions had all grown to an enormous, healthy size.

“Please, harvest her food. Please, take down from the trees her bells and flags and ornaments and keep them as a memory of her. Cut her flowers for your table and, in return, leave your tears here, let them fall to the earth that she cared for and then stop your crying. Remember her…and live,” Walter spoke and they did as he asked.

Kara, Jade’s schoolmate who had become Mara’s confidant, approached Walter hesitantly. She didn’t look like she wanted to be there. She didn’t look like she wanted to talk with him.

“Hello Kara,” Walter greeted her.

“Hi,” she responded quietly.

“Can I ask you something?” Walter inquired.

She hesitated, maybe knowing the question, and then said, “Yes.”

“Do you remember that day when I came home and you and Mara were sitting out back talking and you took off before I came back out?” he asked.

She nodded yes.

“What were you talking about?”

She was quiet for a moment.

“We were planning this. She was planning her death,” Kara confessed.

Walter knew she was being honest. Some unspoken part of him knew that’s what they’d been doing.

“Sometimes,” she started but then stopped.

“Sometimes what?” he forced the question.

“Sometimes I wish the sun wouldn’t come up in the morning,” she said.

Her eyes were cold and black as ink, the color of a cold, deep sea. She walked away, out of Mara’s yard, out of Walter’s life.

Walter’s phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket. It was Jade.

“Hello,” he answered.

“This is hard for me,” she said, “It’s your fault that this happened. You could have stopped it. You could have gotten help for her. You were right there, all along, and saw everything.”

He just took it.

“You knew how bad it was. You could have told me or Sam, you could have made us understand,” and she was crying too hard to continue. She hung up.

Walter went back inside. He looked for Ringo, again, but didn’t find him. He had lovingly buried the other three little ones in her flower garden and had asked the neighbors to keep an eye out for Ringo, thinking he might be back soon.

Walter knew how fragile Mara had become; she would be almost shattered by some occurrence or disappointment that most people would take in stride. He figured that she might have accidentally driven over Shakti and then, upset about that, decided it was time to end her life. She might have put Shiva to sleep to spare Walter having to care for him. She also had her beliefs about spirit and energy and attachment and wouldn’t have thought that she was actually ending anything, just changing it. He had cleaned up her room before the crew from the mortuary had arrived; what was there was none of their concern. In addition to the usual assortment of sleeping pills and other drugs and booze, he had found a bowl of mostly eaten pudding, an empty vial of Seconal and one of Nembutal; he had no idea how she could have gotten them but he knew, from his own experience, how lethal they could be. What he couldn’t rationalize was what she had done to Zoë. Mara had no violence in her.

A few hours later, Sam appeared at the door from the breezeway to the kitchen.

“Hi,” Walter greeted him.

“Did you find Ringo?” he asked. He was done crying but his eyes were red and his face was puffy.

“No. He’s gone missing before so maybe he’ll turn up,” Walter said.

Sam stared at him but Walter could tell he wanted to say something more.

“Go ahead. What is it?” Walter asked.

“We want you out of the house by month end,” he said it loud, with force, meaning it. He enunciated every symbol, emphasized every word, short, firm, strong, and real.

“Wow,” thought Walter.

“Who is we?” Walter asked.

“Me and Jade,” was his reply.

Walter had done many bad things, mostly before he met Mara and her family and he had given away everything that he had once thought he owned; he had walked through many doors and now he knew that they were all permanently shut behind him.

That night, when he finally slept, he dreamed.

A roaring fire burned within the hearth of each room. It had burned before but never given off such heat. The carpet loosened, the backs of the furniture blistered, and the windows heated until the glass cracked. The light of the moon was shining in through the broken windows, making them look beautiful, each one unique like snowflakes. He saw Lizzy slumped in a chair, her face obscured through the plastic, suffocated by the helium in the bag. Next to her, in her chair near the bay window, was Mara, put to sleep by the pills. The air was full of carbon monoxide, thick and deadly. The door from the breezeway opened and Jade walked in. She wanted to be with her sister in front of the beautiful windows. “Don’t follow!” Walter heard his voice saying.

Walter called me later that day and told me, simply at first, “She walked on.”

“I’m so sorry. It sounds like she went in a peaceful way, though,” an Idiot said and then there was silence over the phone.

“It wasn’t a simple, quick death, one where they will say, “She didn’t suffer.” No, it was a killing that lasted a lifetime and hurt all the while it was going on,” he finally said.

“Yes, of course. I’m just so sorry,” was all I could say.

After we hung up, I cried. I don’t know if it was for Walter or for Mara, or for me. What I did know was that now, in a way, he was free and that he might be leaving.

– …Pause, and become present… –