Adam Henry
a novel by John Boston chapter one PLEISTOCENE GAL WON’T YOU COME OUT TONIGHT… “I have a childhood friend who used to kill people. His name is David Forrester. We sprinted out of a San Francisco drizzle to meet some friends for dinner. Mangia Pasta Fina was a new designer pizza joint in the Embarcadero District. "About a 50-minute wait to be seated,” our peppy hostess kept announcing. Lulled by the warmth, the dizzying smells of fresh-baked bread, spices and sauces, Forrester, seven friends and I baby-stepped at a glacial pace, leading the waiting line of the forlorn and hungry. We were next to be seated when, in from the elements, stormed a great wet woman from the Pleistocene epoch. Stuffed into a turquoise Spandex gym outfit, she elbowed her way to the front, found a clearing and stood with hands on her thick, child-bearing hips. For a long moment, she scanned for a table. Our table. Throats were politely cleared. Feet shifted. Finally, Forrester spoke. “Ma’am, excuse me. If I may help…” Forrester tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Without turning around, the Pleistocene Woman jerked away from his touch. Then, she strode to a large booth where an unwary couple was finishing dessert. “Is she meeting them or is she taking cuts?” one of my friends asked. “I saw this once in the Philippines,” said Forrester. “She is taking cuts.” “This isn’t funny,” I said. “I’m starving.” Pleistocene Woman went about 5-1, 220. Her hair was thinning, frizzy and had the $1.99 red dye job. Jangling with Wal-Mart costume jewelry and hostility, Pleistocene Woman placed both her meaty little paws on the Naugahyde seat behind the male diner. The body language was primitive but clear: “This table is mine.” Her butt was at eye level to the guy sitting down and her purse kept bumping him in the ear. My friends and I were a Yuppie still life, dressed well, all leaning forward, our mouths the size of indignant Cheerios. Forrester could read lips. He provided the translation in a slight Southern accent. Pleistocene Gal had asked the couple two simple questions: 1) “Are you done eating yet?” and, 2) “Why aren’t you done eating yet because some of us are getting damn hungry.’” “You’re kidding me,” I said. “She said that.” “Yes.” “Yes you’re kidding me or yes she said that?” “Amigo. She’s hungry.” Forrester stood with his arms folded, squinting. “Wait. The man at our booth just said he and his lovely wife are, uh, ‘… are half-way through their beach hobbler…” “… ‘peach… cobbler?’” I helped. “Would you like to try reading lips in a crowded restaurant under stress and duress?” asked Forrester. “Pffft,” I said. Forrester continued his recon. “The wider-than-tall woman in the running suit is now telling the couple she’s going to stand there and stare at them until they either, and I quote — ‘Rot or leave.’” There was silence. Nine of us, all professionals, one a paid assassin. Thirty additional people strong behind us in line. No one wanted to confront Pleistocene Woman. Forrester came up with more intel: “Now… it looks like, yes… Dessert Man is motioning for rescue. He wants a ruling from someone in the food service industry.” The section waitress appeared. She was one of those breaths of fresh air and energy. We watched as she cheerily tried to explain to Pleistocene Gal the concept of Civilized People Patiently Waiting In Line Ahead Of Her. Pleistocene wouldn’t take her mitts off the booth. I could see the waitress fall back on her heels as the cut-taking woman berated her. “OK,” said Forrester. “The woman in the Rosie O’Donnell jogging suit? She said, and I quote again: ‘Aren’t you all sunshine? That’s going to last long, bussing tables.’ Uh… Now she just said — ‘Cute… Waitress.... Is that your Indian name?’” Cute Waitress smiled weakly. She did an efficient about-face and returned with reinforcements — a young and timid floor manager nine parts Adam’s apple. His nametag read, “Eric.” We could see Eric back up, wince and blink as Pleistocene Woman lit into him. “Bonus points for nice use of his face to catch the spittle,” I said, wincing. Embarrassed, Eric retreated. After a half-hearted attempt to defend turf, the peach cobbler couple left, driven from the booth like lesser predators from a prize carcass. Pleistocene Woman made rapid aircraft propeller motions with her arm, summoning her family. We heard “excuse- me’s” from behind. Her permanently humiliated husband and son obediently walked past 40 stunned people in line to sit at the ill-gotten table. From across the popular restaurant, Pleistocene Woman mumbled curses about her family’s slowness, their lack of resolve. “My this is just not right,” said Forrester. “I hate it when people take cuts,” I said. “Whoa. No. Not that,” said Forrester. “That behemoth of a woman’s actually using her fingers to scoop dollops from those people’s leftover desserts.” There were groans. Someone from the back predicted, “She’s gonna get AIDs.” I motioned for the floor manager. We huddled. Eric apologized and provided an argument of appeasement that would have made the United Nations smile. Eric explained that Pleistocene Woman threatened to make a huge scene. Well. More of a huge scene. And, she used the “S” word. “She threatened to sue me,” said the lanky manager. Welcome to middle management, I thought. Even though Eric offered a round of free drinks for our inconvenience, we were still making faces. What cooled us was the manager’s confession. Eric was nearly off his shift. We were all working people. We could relate. Who wants to get in a fistfight with 10 minutes left in your workday? Eric apologized six more times and motioned for a cocktail waitress. I turned to my friends. A couple of more minutes for the next available table. What could it hurt? We were estimating what kind of damage we could do with one round of free drinks (“Couldn’t one drink be a complete bottle?” one friend asked) but Forrester didn’t seem to be listening. In a secret personnel file only a few would ever see, my bookish pal from elementary school had been credited with 47 kills, some from over 6,000 yards away. “How… simply … rude…” came out in a slow, dumbstruck drawl. Forrester pardoned himself and started to step around me. I placed a palm — gently — on his chest and reminded him: “David. Don’t kill anyone.” Forrester patted my hands with his and thought about that for a moment. David asked, “Why?” “It will take us longer to get a table,” I said. “But, in the pandemonium, we steal food, scarf it down and won’t have to pay for it,” smiled Forrester. “And with our mouths full of ill-gotten food, where goes the ambiance, the dinner conversation?” I wanted to know. “Have you ever noticed how society is in love with fast deals and bumper sticker sayings, but rarely will they make the right and difficult choice?” he asked me. “I like bumper sticker sayings, fast deals and avoiding conflict,” I said. “I’ve made a comfortable life from them.” “But I still hope for you,” said Forrester. “I’ll be right back. Maybe.” He walked toward Pleistocene Woman and our booth. It was hard to see through the crowd. But I could catch glimpses of Forrester politely bending over and explaining that some people — he gestured toward us — had been waiting nearly an hour to get a table. Did she know there was a waiting list? Several people walked by, blocking my field of vision. Then we heard the scream. It was primal, somewhere between outrage and anguish normally heard in mental wards or at the Large Animal Vet. The crowd parted and Forrester walked back to us, holding his arm. “She hit me,” he said. “That little acrimonious monkey bucket of a woman socked me,” Forrester said, pointing to his left bicep. Our friends didn’t know what my pal did for a living. I watched as our friends doted on him. Quietly, I thanked him for not snapping her neck. “I think you should go over and talk to her,” said Forrester, grinning wickedly at me. “Why?”
“You’re famous. People respect you.” “Or we could just wait for the next available table,” I suggested. “Or, you could go over and get her the hell out of the booth that Providence rightly declared as ours,” said Forrester. “Or we could just wait for the next available table,” I repeated. Forrester lightly tapped his jacket where his heavy revolver was holstered. He softly spoke the words, “Or, I could just shoot her…” Forrester was kidding. Probably. I looked over at my friends. They all wore an identical expression: ‘Well. Free drinks be damned. It IS Our Booth.’ At nine p.m. and after a hard day, like most of the middle class, all I wanted in life was simplicity. I wanted beer and a lousy pizza, not confrontation. But, I went to her, aware of cheering friends, the smell of marinara sauce and my awkward walk. I remember blanching, seeing Pleistocene Woman up close. The woman didn’t have so much a face as a stencil. Eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, everything was painted. Primer, two coats. She mistook me for another manager and told me in efficient, graphic terms, to be fruitful, and multiply, without the benefit of a spouse or caring partner. Like she knew. I cleared my throat and the female version of Henry VIII took that as a sign to order three appetizers, soup, salad and a chicken entrée — for herself. Her husband looked at me apologetically and partially stood in a supine posture. “Maybe we should go, Marge…” Perfect, I thought. Large Marge. “How about a bowl of cold assholes for my husband there?” the woman suggested. “It looks like he’s down about a quart. Get a spoon and join him.” “Look…” I started to say. “The sooner we get our food, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair,” Pleistocene Marge interrupted. “We’re not moving. Serve us. Or call the cops.” The “you dick” was not spoken, but implied. “You,” she said to her half-standing husband, “sit down.” “I don’t work here,” I said. “I’m just with the party that had this…” “I don’t care if…” Marge interrupted. I had never seen her before, but we were both frozen in silent recognition. She was a thick and fearsome piece of cake. I wasn’t afraid. But I was clammy. Dizzy. Best I can describe the sensation is that I was being pulled into her through her eyes, puffy, challenging, buzzing with instant accusations for all occasions eyes. I could see vignettes from her angry existence and I couldn’t look away. Somehow I knew her life. She had been beaten and emotionally badgered all her childhood. She grew and did likewise. I saw clear scenes of her screaming at strangers in parking lots and garage sales and loved ones at family reunions. Here was a life of turmoil, pain and endless payback. People dreaded her and I kept getting pulled deeper into a dark communion. Her expression turned from impatience to quick anger. The anger melted to fear and then to terror. She recoiled from me. Marge frantically slid out of the booth, not even bothering to summon her son and husband. She kept looking back as she awkwardly ran away. “You’ve come to take my brain,” Pleistocene Woman shouted back at me. She ran awkwardly on her heels, feet splayed, shoving people on her way out of the restaurant. The dizzy spell passed and I took a deep breath. I was struck by her odd syntax: “ ‘You’ve come to take my brain.’” I get that a lot. I’m in television. chapter two BUTTON, BUTTON. WESLEY HAS THE BUTTON… There wasn’t a healthy relationship amongst the nine of us. But we had fun. After standing for nearly an hour, our gang blessedly melted into the huge booth. Forrester hoisted the original twice-eaten peach cobbler and innocently asked ‘Cute Waitress’ if she could put that in a to-go box for him. The drinks came. Pleistocene Marge was not there to defend herself and we marveled about her performance. Despite all the moans and bellows from the protesting herd, she was defiant. What was it about her? Aggression? Will? Misplaced girlish testosterone? “She’s an asshole,” a friend clarified. We were all much too young to do be indulging in the Obligatory Outraged American Taxpayer thing. But we did. We complained. Someone asked: “What is this world coming to?” “…by cracky,” I added. It was a fair question. Just then, a busboy dropped a bin of dirty dishes in the middle of our conversation. Two abrupt screams escaped from across the room. A couple of friends at my table were startled. There had been a rocket ship acceleration of change in the past few years. More meanness. More cheating. More lies. More lewdness. More crimes. Daily, more impossibly heinous crimes. More wars. Terrorism foreign and domestic. Our landmarks were being obliterated. This was my absolute favorite Italian restaurant in San Francisco. I practically lived here after work. A pub across town, identical to ours, had been blown up the night before by yet another cult with a gripe. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in the restaurant along with 57 people. Only the top part of a note was found with the now-familiar and aggravating partial sentence: “…call attention to the plight of…” Of what? Not enough cheese? Too much sausage? “The Godfather” trilogy? We’ll never know. With each new spike on the sin chart, there followed more laws, more cops, more speeches, more barbed wire and surveillance. We ate and had to shout above the din of laughter and yelling. The music was loud. We were young, ferocious and debilitatingly pompous, like actors in a wine commercial. That’s when The Button first appeared. After dinner, another friend, Refrigerator Derek, posed that damned question to our crowded table: “If you could eliminate the truly evil people of the world — all of the jerks — with a push of a button — would you?” “Would you what?” someone asked. “Would you push the button?” Opinions: From San Francisco’s Insufferable Left — no. Murder is wrong. Bad-bad-bad. Murder solves nothing. Swell Honest Dialogue, By Golly, Colleagues — like the kind we were having over drinks and hors d’oeuvres — that kind of New Yorker Magazine moment was what the world needed. From the Unforgiving Right — yes. Boy howdy yes, you betcha. But who needs a button to push? That debater had lost two brothers in the early days of one of the wars. For true revenge, there needed to be guilty faces physically ripped apart by bare hands. Bones had to be crushed. Souls had to be taunted as they left the bodies. We were all silent a moment, embarrassed by our friend’s anger. Forrester looked away nonplussed. I was the only person at the table who knew what he did for a living. Forrester had caused many souls to leave many bodies. I was shallow. At the time, I had no opinion. Now, I am not shallow. I am haunted. There are things I thought I’d never do. I thought I’d never harm children or old people. I hadn’t stolen anything to that point and had never been tested by hunger or desperation. I try not to lie. “Can you have adventure without sin?” one friend asked. Everyone looked at her funny. Of course you can. “I think she means, ‘killing,’” I said. “Executing,” Refrigerator Derek clarified. He sold appliances, hence the nickname. His cigarette dangled, unlit. This was, after all, California. He took out a thick felt pen and started to draw a fat button on the table. “Don’t,” I said. I pushed over a cocktail napkin instead. We watched him draw. The former art major inked-in the Solve-All Button I would grow to curse. The red bled across the paper. All jerks gone — push the button? All the horror, all the weight of recent years, gone. The criminals, the sick and evil, predators, bullies who seemed to lurk everywhere, torturers, cheaters, perverts, petty devils, women who take cuts in crowded restaurants, great tyrants and their minions — and especially the terrorists. Those bastard terrorists. “Well. Do you — or — don’t you?” Refer Derek asked. I looked at Forrester. He had pushed The Button. He looked at me bemused. “The first thing that comes to mind,” I said, “is that if I push a button that gets rid of every jerk in the world, wouldn’t you disappear before my very eyes?” My fingers wiggled skyward to show the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of smoke. “Hardy-har-har,” Refrigerator D said, tiredly. The table laughed. Push the button? I had questions. Just how many jerks are there in the world? I needed definitions. A boilerplate for evil seemed easy. It was the nuances. Did I get to eliminate small, high-strung dogs? If I were responsible for so many deaths, would I turn mad? Lose my soul? Be hounded to death with publicity after the fact? If there were a God, would He smirk disapprovingly, nod His Head and go, “Tut, tut, tut. Spiritual arrogance. On a grand scale. THAT’S Gonna Cost You, Little Buddy...” “God spits out the lukewarm,” someone said. “Choose.” The napkin with The Button on it sat at the center of the table. A few fingers reached out to push it. A few hands quickly slapped them away. “Can you have an executioner with a pure heart?” I asked. Forrester sported a big grin, looking at me and shaking his head, no. When you’re 31, you can ask Profound Coffee Shop Questions like that with impunity. “Quit stalling. Push the button, yes or no?” Derek pressed. I dragged the napkin across the table and spun it around a few times. My friends smiled at me with eyebrows raised as my index finger tantalizingly circled above. Some of the guys chanted like they were on Jerry Springer: “Push it! Push it!” A couple of the girl pals offered enthusiastic faux screams. I ended up rolling the napkin into a ball and tossing it at the friend who posed the question. It bounced harmlessly off his forehead into a half-empty coffee cup and submerged. “A fitting metaphor on the proper use of weapons of mass destruction,” I said. Some groaned. Some cheered. Forrester smiled. He was again pleasantly drunk. He made a run to the bar and I slid out to hit the men’s room. • • • By midnight, Mangia Pasta Fina was still standing room only. I was trying to squeeze through the barroom humanity when the familiar dizziness returned. I hoped it was a small attack of claustrophobia or maybe bad clam sauce. But I knew better. “Hey! Watch out, you idiot!” some guy behind me yelled, pushing me away from him. I felt light-headed. My heart went into overdrive. Strong hands grabbed an arm, held me up and guided me to a table. There was the familiar dark implosion and I was gone again. Back then, I was fainting a lot. I awoke and saw the tall ceiling with the red-painted huge air ducts, electrical wiring and dim lights. My head was resting on the back of a booth. Three large men and two couples were staring at me. I blinked and asked, “How long was I out this time?” “Nine days. Ten nights. I’ve never seen such a coma. Plus, you have an $11,000 bar tab,” the man said. “Just kidding. You probably had one too many. Just don’t drive.” I exhaled. “I don’t drink. Well. That much.” “Pity.” We introduced ourselves. “Manny Petrocelli,” he said. Manny looked like businessman who made millions selling surfboards. Or drugs. He was tan, athletic and casually but well dressed. His two friends standing respectfully behind him looked uncomfortably out of place. “This is Bob and this is Larry. They’re from Iowa. Upstate.” Even with my head still shaky, I had to smile. I didn’t know Iowa had an upstate. “Iowa, huh?” I said. Bob and Larry did not look like they came from any part of the Tall Corn State. They looked not quite Arabic and not quite African. Forrester would later tell me they were Ethiopian. Almost in unison, Petrocelli’s associates nodded and said, “How-do-you-do” as if reading the phrase from Berlitz for the first time. I closed my eyes. Without moving, I did a roving inventory. My heart was back to normal. I tried to stand but was still a little woozy. “Easy there, amigo,” said Petrocelli. “You’re walking the tightrope.” He steadied me back to the seat. “Please excuse me for eavesdropping,” the surfer said. “But I couldn’t help hearing your friends’ conversation.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I picked up something subtle. Whenever I moved, ‘Bob and Larry’ inched away in apprehension. Though handsome and confident, Petrocelli seemed ready to bounce into a martial arts self-defense stance. I looked across the room. “You were eavesdropping on us from here?” “I could say I walked by a couple of times, but that would be fibbing. I’ve good ears,” said Petrocelli, smiling. I noticed the small listening device protruding. Petrocelli had a slight case of cauliflower ears. It’s a malady one gets from close-in fighting. There wasn’t much to do but nod. I was trying to figure out if I still owned legs. “You really have no opinion about pushing a bozo-oriented doomsday button?” he asked. I took another breath to get my bearings. “Who’d want that kind of responsibility?” I answered. “Point well taken.” “Thanks, by the way, for helping me out,” I said. “I just get these dizzy spells from time to time.” “Pulse races to over 200?” Petrocelli asked. “Yes.” “Blood pressure rises, you feel clammy, sometimes pass out and there are no negative after-effects or health problems and after a couple of minutes of feeling really tired, you actually feel rather invigorated?” My pulse once reached 240. It’s not supposed to do that. I had seen a dozen physicians and except for the guestimate of “maybe really bad stress?” the doctors didn’t know what I had. One specialist gave up and suggested, “Perhaps you are the vanguard of a new species.” “How did you know?” I asked. I sat up. Bob and Larry took a step back. Petrocelli tightened. “Probably just the flu,” he said. “Can I ask a quick favor?” He reached inside his tan linen jacket. I caught a glimpse of a gun. “Have you ever seen this fellow before?” He slid a photo of a man with his arms around a couple of Africans in long robes. Like Petrocelli, the man was tan and athletic, older though, about 50-something. He looked like he was on safari. He had the kindest face and looked fatherly. I recognized something familiar in the deep-set eyes. Behind the genuine smile was a bottomless sadness. Looking up at Petrocelli, I could see he was measuring me. “I’ve never seen him before,” I said. “At least, the face doesn’t ring a bell. I was beginning to get uncomfortable again. “I’m sorry. I’m getting this odd …” I stopped. “Is there something you want from me?” Petrocelli glanced at Bob and Larry. “The same thing as every Miss Universe contestant.” “You’re not asking me out on a date, are you?” I threw in the obligatory “Not that that’s a bad thing...” After all. This was San Francisco. “Well, well, well. Isn’t this a motley crew?” My friend Forrester joined us. “How you feelin’?” he asked me. He was staring a little too rudely at Petrocelli. He stood. I stood. We were all standing. I noticed that both Forrester and the surfer were in an odd sideways pose, left shoulders forward. Forrester had told me that you make a thinner target that way, plus, if you get shot, the bullet will hit your arm, not your heart, and give you time to fire back. “David, this is, uh...” “We know each other,” Forrester interrupted. I cleared my throat and took a step between the two. “Want to touch revolvers?” Petrocelli asked. One of the Ethiopians placed a large hand on his shoulder. “Just a little one.” With feigned awkwardness, they hugged, then laughed and jostled one another. Even the two couples that were kind enough to let us borrow their table during my fainting spell were relieved. Then Forrester saw the photo on the table and said, “uh-oh dear Lordy-Lordy...” • • • Forrester and I made our way back to the booth. I asked him about Petrocelli. Because we never lie to one another, Forrester answered: “He’s sort of the sandy-haired James Bond of the Vatican. I don’t want to alarm you, but you might be in a passel of trouble.” “So far it’s not working,” I said. “You’re alarming me. David. What’s going on?” I listened as calmly as I could. “Manny’s an old friend of mine and we have indulged in monkey business together from time to time and although he took this rather nice paying job overseas for Holy Mother Church, we still keep in touch. Here’s the skinny. In the old part of Jerusalem sits Deir el-Sultan. It’s a monastery that was founded in the 4th century and represents the Christian Ethiopian Church that traces its roots to the Abyssinians in the Book of Acts,” said Forrester. “The two Africans with Manny? They’re monks, I believe.” He took a sip of brandy. “Today, the shrine is a hovel. The stench of sewage is masked by ammonia and the buildings are in weary decay. In a slow-moving comic opera, Catholic, Israeli, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian and Egyptian Coptic bureaucrats point fingers at one another over whom should clean up the holy site. “More than 100 yards below street level and off limits to everyone is a small windowless room. Outside seven thick oak-and-iron doors in a cramped hallway stand seven heavily armed Vatican guards in plain clothes. Petrocelli is in charge of that revolving guard detail. Behind them seven Ethiopian monks in even plainer clothes pray and sing Gregorian chants around-the-clock for this particular fellow right here.” Forrester tapped the photo Petrocelli had given me. “His name is Wesley.” “Wesley?” “Yes.” “Is that a first or last?” “Don’t know. It’s just ‘Wesley.’” “You mean like, ‘just Madonna’ or ‘just Prince?’” “Yup. Best as I know,” said Forrester. I listened and asked questions. I learned that Wesley is chained the wall. Usually. From time-to-time, he escapes. The Vatican, the Pope and a handful of world leaders feel this is not a good thing. “This is, of course, off the record, of course,” said Forrester. At the time, I thought he was pulling my leg. As my friend droned on, something caught my eye. On our table was the cocktail napkin with The Button on it. My head tilted. “Did you do this?” I asked. Not an hour earlier, I had just wrinkled that thing up and threw it away. It landed in someone’s coffee. The Napkin. With The Button on it. The napkin was five inches across. The round red button was 3-inches wide. Little static lightning bursts were drawn in as if to give it more energy. They hadn’t bussed our dishes yet. My friend’s coffee cup was still there, with no napkin floating in it. This cocktail napkin with the cartoon button was clean, dry and smooth. I looked at Wesley’s picture and questions naturally arose. “Forrester?” “Yes?” “Questions.” “Please?” “If he’s locked in a subterranean cell, how did he get so tan?” “Can’t say.” “And why not Kiwanis or Rotary?” “Beg pardon?” “Of all the seemingly passive organizations in the world, what exactly did this Wesley do to get chained to a wall by the Catholic Church?” I asked. “Can’t say.” “Please don’t tell me this has something to do with national security,” I said. “Okay. I won’t.” Forrester shrugged. I let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “Why was your friend asking if I knew this Wesley?” “That, honestly friend, I do not know. But be careful,” said Forrester. “This is a joke.” He started to take a swig, then put down the large brandy snifter. “No.” I started to roll up the napkin and toss it into the coffee cup again. Instead, I folded it carefully in half and stuck it inside a pocket for safe-keeping. chapter three MAN BITES BEAR I slept on the couch at Forrester’s place. The next morning, I showered, shaved and borrowed some of Forrester’s nondescript beige clothes from his Huey Lewis & The News collection. I turned on the TV and read papers while I got dressed. No surprises. We were still in four wars, winning battles, but mostly getting our butts kicked abroad, a fraction of a percent a day and not yet knowing it. At home, we were gnawing on one another. The world was still insane, which was bad for the world and good for me. I’m a television reporter for Global Cable News. I had been at work only a few minutes when one of the newswriters stuck his head over my cubicle and announced that a bunch of them were gathering in 30 seconds to watch a “Hey Martha.” The term started in the newspaper business but worked its way into TV. A “Hey Martha” is one of those clips that is so interesting or bizarre, someone yells: “Hey Martha! You gotta drop what you’re doing come in here and see this!” I walked down the hall to a conference room. A bunch of my fellow cold-blooded media elitists were standing around, shirtsleeves rolled up, arms folded. The unfamiliar and self-conscious face belonged to Tol Vanlarssen. He was a wildlife photographer who made about 8 cents an hour trying to get himself killed while filming grizzly bears three time zones away from the nearest hospital. Several levels of insulating receptionists tried to explain to Vanlarssen that what he really wanted was to pester the Discovery Channel. Vanlarssen was tall and shy. He had thinning blonde hair with a ruddy complexion burnt by a life outdoors. In understatement, he said, “I think you’ll find this important.” He had captured 186 seconds of video in the wilds of British Columbia. Vanlarssen wanted a quick sale. He wanted to hurry back to the wilderness where life was safer. “This is footage of ursis horribilis,” he said. Grizzly bear. We all wore insufferable smirks as the footage began. The tape was grainy and the lead-in was a simple wide shot of a wilderness lake in early winter. The gray of Canadian autumn oozed over impossibly beautiful landscape. I do news features for the largest cable news network in the world. I stand in front of cameras, lowering my voice an octave and saying things that would embarrass most grown-ups. Like… “Autumn oozed over the melancholy North American rainforest…” Sometimes, I embarrass myself. The camera work got jerky as Vanlarssen urgently displayed a perfectly normal human being in what looked to be a lightweight Italian designer suit, banana yellow. The man was sitting on a log by the lakeshore. Behind, a 1,300-pound bear was dutifully stalking him. We could hear the shouts. Vanlarssen was yelling, running at the seated man while filming, trying to warn him of the approaching bruin. The lens was on full zoom. There was a harsh wind and the man was maybe 600 yards away from the naturalist. Both bear and human ignored the screams of the photographer. A few dozen of us now were squeezed into the conference room in front of the monitor. The wise guy duck lips were gone. We sensed Important TV. This guy in the yellow suit was certainly going to be mauled, then eaten. There is nothing stealthy about a grumpy male silverback grizzly. It sees something. It lowers its head. It approaches. Bears can run 35 miles an hour for sustained bursts, faster than a horse, 10 mph faster than the swiftest human. But the bear didn’t attack. It approached. It bounced its head. It sniffed the man who seemed deep in thought, staring out at the lake. Using his nose, the bear pushed the fellow dressed more for summer in Milan than the Canadian wilderness. The bear rolled over, like a dog, seemingly asking to be scratched on the stomach. “So it’s some animal trainer and his pet bear,” someone in the newsroom said. “What is this, a music video?” asked another. I cleared my throat. The wildlife photographer was standing in the room with us and he was blushing. “It is strange. I am sorry. I assure you. It is a wild bear,” Vanlarssen said, apologetically. “Hey. It’s the Blair Bear Project,” quipped one of the jaded. Laughter. This wasn’t a hoax. The tape rolled. Vanlarssen’s subject still sat on the log, absent-mindedly playing with the huge omnivore, rubbing its head and pulling its ears. Their play grew frisky and this bear, the size of a small SUV, started to rough-house. Eventually, I would view the video maybe two hundred times. I would later interview the photographer. Vanlarssen was subdued. Careful. Like something had happened in his life that changed him forever and he wasn’t particularly eager to share it with anyone, especially a reporter for a nosey news cable giant. He let the three-minute clip speak for itself. “Oh c’mon. Please. There’s gotta be a trick,” someone protested. As the bear’s actions grew rougher, he wasn’t able to knock the man over. Even if this was some set-up, the bear was seven times the weight of the man, maybe 25 times stronger. Or so we thought then. The star of Vanlarssen’s accidental video sat there calmly, in his subdued yellow, expensive-looking GQ summer suit. There was a light snow flurry. A big grizzly can carry a full-grown elk off in its mouth. It can kill a moose with one blow from its huge paws. At first, the bruin, I’m guessing in some alpha male test of strength, tried to force the man off the log by pushing him with his head and shoulders. After an attempted and blocked swipe, the man — still seemingly lost in thought while staring off at the lake — was holding the bear’s massive head down on the ground. Effortlessly. With one hand. We all looked for seams, special effects. This felt like a state-of-the-art ad reel from some young film school whiz. “Eat Grizzly Cereal. Have Energy. Be Strong. Ug.” I could make out a distant protesting roar and snorts from the bear. Its head was pinned like it were a small pesky dog being not hurt, but judiciously punished. The more the man held the bear, the more the bear struggled. The predator grew angry. He kept raising those huge paws across the man’s forearms in that really terrific suit and tufts of grass and dirt were flying. But the man, legs crossed, held him down for several minutes. Slowly, easing up, he let the bear go. The photographer had stopped running, mesmerized, as we were, by the footage in his viewfinder. The bear retreated a few steps, shook its head then stomped the ground a few times with its front paws. The man raised a palm and waved it gently, as if to say, “Think about it.” And the bear did. It had the sense to saunter away. The tape ended with the man standing, making a slight face and brushing off his hands and clothes. Hands behind his back, he looked up at the sky for several seconds, then around at the scenery. He stretched. He seemed content. Some small piece of litter on the ground attracted his attention and he bent over to delicately pick it up and put it in his trouser pocket. The man then turned to face the cameraman and we got a pretty good close-up of his face. “Anyone know who this guy is?” someone asked. I did. It was the man in the photograph from last night. Wesley. chapter four THE GIRL WITH THE PIPE CLEANER ARMS I live in Nuevo Mariposa. It’s one of those hastily-thrown-up instant soup communities, just south of Petaluma off Highway 101, sprung whole from a dairy farm. That night, after watching the Wesley/Bear video over and over, I drove home and began the conflicting ritual of self-destruction and redemption by working out mightily at the gym, followed by eating an entire mushroom pizza, a six-pack of Coke and two pints of ice cream. I have issues. I scan a hundred stories of mayhem on wire services, the Internet, in newspapers. On that day, guerillas in South America macheted to death nearly everyone in the Colombian village of Santa Ynez, chasing screaming people deep into the rainforest. Nuns in Indonesia were raped and tortured. They had names of Sandra, Dolores and Qwan. Sister Mary Beth prayed for her attackers during the ordeal. We logged our fourth case of a terrorist with a high-powered rifle picking off tourists in an amusement park. These episodes are far away. You get numb. Nuevo Mariposa — Spanish for “New Butterfly” — was a new wrinkle on the yuppie concentration camps they’ve been squeezing out since the 1960s. Nuevo Mariposa was California’s first all-secure planned urban community. There were guards dressed in non-threatening Bermuda shorts and polo shirts with butterfly logos. The rental cops rode bicycles and smiled. They carried guns. Your credit card-sized key not only opened up the security gate to your condo and your front door, but it let you in the various shops in Nuevo Mariposa. Technology was a beautiful thing. These cards had no number. That was too Orwellian. But they had your picture. You passed the card in front of a laser and simultaneously, a camera scanned your face, making sure the card, user and all the not-so-secret numbers lined up. This not only kept out the riff-raff, it pissed them off. I was in the grocery store, buying soda and ice cream to get me through the night and fruit and vegetables for the perpetual new leaf I would be turning over for the next morning when I spotted an alleged father on Aisle Three. He was a strong man, maybe 190 pounds. Well-muscled hands were wrapped around the little pipe cleaner-sized arms of his daughter. He shook her. Teeth clenched, bent over, his face an inch away from hers, he asked what the hell was wrong with the girl. There was nothing wrong with her. She was maybe 8. She had black hair and freckles. She was sobbing. More accurately, the girl was terrified and was trying to stop sobbing because every time a jagged cry slipped out, the brute shook her, cursed her. I wondered. Difference of opinion on what cereal to take home? Did he just have a hard day and this was a rare outbreak? It wasn’t the pain of being shaken that made her cry. It was the fact that the man who was supposed to love her, didn’t. In fact, he despised this beautiful little creation with the spindly legs. I can’t tell you whom I hated most that moment. Me or him. I rolled my cart past. He straightened and I felt the familiar dizziness wash over me. I saw arrogance. Pride. Ego. He looked at me. What did he see in my eyes? Cowardice? There was the familiar challenge. Yes. I’m evil. What are you going to do about it? I looked straight ahead. I pushed my shopping cart quietly by. The dizziness passed, I bought an extra candy bar at the check-out and thought about going back or talking to the grocery store manager because obviously, taking away custody of someone’s daughter and maybe shooting a bully’s kneecaps off with a sawed-off shotgun were part of his job description. I did go back. Twice. I fought the dizziness. Some distant part of me came up with the weak plan that if I quietly wheeled my shopping cart by them, he would stop. The third pass by the cereal aisle, he slapped her. I winced. My mouth opened. No sound came out. At home later that same night, and even years later, I made all the right lawyerly and grown-up justifications. Yes. It was a difficult situation. A parent has the right to discipline their child. Lying to myself, I tried the argument that had I said anything, it may have provoked the man into an even more savage beating when they got home. I tried editing Reality. In my head, long and safely afterwards, I stepped in between the monster and his prey. I lashed him with an Important Verbal Lesson on The Fabulous Gift Children Are & How We Should Cherish Them. How we can mold life right in our heads. In my mental ghost world, I was heroic. I stepped in between father and daughter. I gently picked her up and said, “You’re coming home with me. I promise I’ll care for you. I used to have children. I’m fun, yet firm. I have a sense of fair play and I can get you into a really good college when that time comes.” In another scenario, I grabbed the monster’s thumb — the one wrapped around that small bruised arm — and twisted it so far back it cracked, rather satisfyingly. The creep fell awkwardly over, knees bent, on his back in pain. Each of my fantasy scenarios grew in violence until, teeth clenched, I had morphed into him. I beat him to death with two cans of vegetable soup. Which shouldn’t have been on the cereal aisle. Campbell’s Cream of Kung Fu. I am haunted by their eyes. The willfulness of his, the pleading in hers. The little girl and I looked at each other as I sailed by gracefully, protected by the crisscrossing metal of the shopping cart. I wished I had not seen those eyes. They pulled me to a place beyond human, to the holy. Help? No. I couldn’t possibly. I am late for going home and eating ice cream. The next day, I would punch the wrong someone in the nose. chapter five BILLY O’FLANNELL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE Some scientists say that an ice age doesn’t form in eons. It can sneak right up on you in a matter of a few winters. I thought of our new ice age, one not of temperature but of constraint. I obediently entered the traffic jam on South 101. I stopped noticing the surveillance cameras years ago but the National Guardsmen with the binoculars ever few miles still annoyed me. Normally, I drive into work later, avoiding the hellish commute. But this morning I had an interview with the rock star Billy O’Flannell. My cell phone rang. “Where the hell are you?!” It was Irene Westhall from the studio, Number Two News Director and my close friend. “I’m somewhere in the building,” I said. I hung up. I was stuck in traffic and inched by the guard posts at the tunnel before the Golden Gate Bridge. The machine gun nests were hidden in the ivy so they wouldn’t cause too many accidents. This morning, an armored personnel carrier had overheated and was blocking the old person/immigrant’s lane. A mile past that at the bridge were usual two camouflaged trucks with canvas tops hiding missiles. I knew the missiles weren’t for people trying to skip the toll.
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