Some of these stories first appeared in Archipelago, The Paumanok Review, The Great Bob Marley, and a previous edition of Michelangelo’s Shoulder.

Cover drawing: “Shan” by Finn.

Contents

• Patriot Ghosts

• The Great Bob Marley

• The Maroons

• Waiting for Happiness

• Manzanita

• Guayaquil

• Savage Eden

• What’s Ugly Cannot Last

• Michelangelo’s Shoulder

• Bonkers

• The Damnedest Places

• TIDKA

• Truth

 

for w.cat

Patriot Ghosts

“Pango never bit anyone.” Carver bent over slowly and rubbed his dog’s ears.

"Do you want Girl Scout cookies?” A mini-van was parked near the entrance to the driveway, probably driven by the girl’s mother, pressed into service.

“Last year I had peanut butter. And mint, I think. Mint chocolate.”

“We have those. Here’s the list.”

“I’ll just have the same again. Two boxes of each would be nice.”

She recorded his order carefully. “It will take three to five weeks. You can pay now or when we bring them.”

“Later will be fine.”

“Thank you.” She walked, nearly skipped, up the drive. Carver waited until she entered the van and was driven around the bend. No sign of Robert, who was late. Carver had come to expect, if not accept, this. It was troublesome that his son could not keep to his schedules. A gray squirrel ventured onto a corner of the lawn, and Pango chased it off, tail wagging happily. Spring. The new leaves completely screened the main house from view. He preferred it that way, although in the winter he could barely see its outline through the trees. He’d sold it for a handsome profit after building the studio. Retreat is the most difficult maneuver, Von Clausewitz said.

Carver was a slight man with thinning hair. His face was narrow and smooth with impenetrable light blue eyes. He’d become used to an orderly solitude, lightened by Pango and an occasional dinner out. Libby now lived full time in Palm Beach, visiting in July. He went south for ten days at Christmas. They had settled into a de facto separation without much discussion. She had her bridge club and gin; he had the War of 1812.

Robert came up from Boston for lunch several times a year; Kaylie called now and then, usually in distress. She didn’t ask, but he sent her small sums to help with car expenses and apartment deposits. Each year at Christmas she seemed thinner. She was good looking, but her relationships didn’t last. Apparently, neither she nor Robert were inclined to have children. “Chacun’ à son goût, eh Pango?” They had their own lives now.

As he moved to enter the house, he heard a car approaching. He waited and watched Robert turn in, too fast. His car skidded to a stop by the door.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Robert. Good to see you. Did you bring your appetite? Robert’s jaw was more square than his father’s. He had a salt and pepper three day stubble and dark darting eyes.

“I did. Hello, Pango. And a thirst to go with it.”

“We shall accommodate both.”

Inside, Robert took a deep breath, smelling. “Old books and fried onions.”

“Scallions,” Carver said, watching his son’s eyes scan the main room.

“That half-model is new—the Resolute, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is. The Saltonstalls had it made for me. They took the lines from her while she was out of the water. Rather generous of them.”

“You did give them a good price.”

“Yes, well, I wanted to be sure that she was looked after. They are proper sailors, the Saltonstalls.”

“I remember when you tossed me overboard to learn how to swim.” Robert’s mouth twisted downward. “I hated you for that.”

“You learned,” Carver said mildly. “Ale? Whiskey?”

“Ale.”

Carver opened a bottle and prepared a short whiskey for himself. “Sláinte.”

“Sláinte.”

“The Resolute’s hull could be reproduced from that model, Robert. Use and beauty married.” Carver turned the flame up under a skillet of crab cakes. “What do you hear from Kaylie?”

“She ditched that loser, Leo.”

“Ah, Leo—the interior decorator. I met him briefly in Palm Beach.” Carver lifted the corner of a crab cake, then flattened it with his spatula. “Quite a presentable fellow, but lacking a certain mettle.”

“She got a big contract.”

“More lighting work?”

“Yes. A museum. One of the smaller ones in D.C., I don’t remember which. She can be a pain in the ass, but she knows what she’s doing.”

“There is something to be said for staying in one line of work,” Carver said, “although at times I wonder about all that graduate school.” He turned the crab cakes.

“I spared you that expense, anyway.”

“You’ve always been most independent, Robert.” The smells of browning crabmeat, capers, and mustard spread through the room. Carver put a vinaigrette dressing on the salad and brought the bowl to the table.

“Speaking of work,” Robert said, “I’ve been doing some reading about the C.I.A. involvement in Latin America, Chile, the Bay of Pigs. We knew you were in the government—national security is what you told us. I never realized you were a big part of all that.”

Carver took a baguette from the oven. “You didn’t need to know. One of the first principles of security. The cakes are nearly done.”

“Jesus Christ, you were killing people! For what?”

“Freedom,” Carver said. “Our family has fought for it for generations. Shall we eat?” He set the skillet on a wrought iron trivet in the center of the table.

“It’s one thing to fight for your own freedom, risk your own neck; it’s another to send people on some kind of crusade to other countries, killing for a goddamned idea.”

“At times you have to make hard choices,” Carver said. “Maybe we made mistakes. We meant well. In any event, history will judge.” He took a bite of crab cake and chewed contentedly.

“History is judging. The American Empire was defeated and rolled back in Vietnam.”

“I wouldn’t say we were defeated, quite yet. Although, the signs are dismaying.”

Robert frowned and ate quickly. He got up and helped himself to another ale. “I’m just figuring this out,” he said. “Mom is buried alive in Palm Beach; Kaylie is a nervous wreck; and I’ve been on the run as long as I can remember. You’ve always been calm, in control, at the eye of some weird storm.” He shook his head. “Nightmares. They never stop. Always people hunting me down. You know what? They want justice, revenge. I’m haunted by these friggin’ patriot ghosts.” Carver listened with his head tilted a bit to one side. He broke off a piece of bread as Robert went on.

“Lying. Collateral damage. We’re the collateral damage—me, and Kaylie, and Mom, the whole damn country.”

“I am sorry if you’ve been hurt, Robert.” Carver pushed his plate slightly forward and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Excuse me for a moment.”

Robert took a long drink of ale and leaned back in his chair. Nothing changes, he thought. How could his father be so completely unruffled? Carver returned and sat down. He was holding a small black container, metallic, shaped like a tiny football. He held it up, squeezed it in two places, and twisted. Robert heard a snap. His father twisted in the opposite direction and squeezed again. The container came apart in two pieces. He shook a red pill onto his palm.

“When I was—active—I had this with me always. I’m required to take it if captured. Supposed to be an immediate painless death.” He paused. “If it will satisfy the ghosts, rid you of them, I will take it now.” He put the pill on his tongue and picked up his whiskey. He looked at Robert, raising his eyebrows.

Robert leaned forward. “No! No! Don’t take it!” Carver put down his glass and carefully took the pill from his mouth. “I don’t want you to die, for Christ’s sake; I want you to understand.”

Faces long forgotten appeared before Carver. “I will try,” he said. “I have an easier time with the War of 1812.” It was as close to an apology as his father could come, Robert realized.

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing that they hang around,” Robert said.

“They?”

“The ghosts. Forcing us to remember.” They finished eating in silence.

Robert left an hour later with a bag containing the remaining crab cakes and half a baguette. He opened the car door and then turned and went back to his father. He hugged him for the first time in twenty-five years and was surprised at how small he was.

The Great Bob Marley

Age had bent Grant slightly; there was a suggestion of the longbow about him as he walked through the village, tall and thin, thinking. Newcomers thought that he probably taught at the college; he seemed too independent for the commuter crowd. When Francie passed him on the sidewalk, she asked her friend, Janey, “Who’s that?”

“Grant Kavanagh. Local boy, played on all the teams in high school. Been married a couple of times. He writes about art, art history.”

“He reminds me of someone I knew who made stained glass windows. Any kids?”

“I don’t think so. There was a stepson in his second marriage, but there was an awful accident, a car wreck. The boy died. Grant’s been single quite a while. Pretty buttoned up, hard to reach.”

“I like tall men,” Francie said.

“What about Fergus? He couldn’t have been more than five foot three!”

“He was an exception.”

“Exceptionally rich.”

“He was.”

“God, Francie, how could you leave him? Your life was so pleasant.”

“Fergus was sweet. But he was such a good dog, you know, wanting to please everyone. He would stumble, jumping to his feet when anyone entered the room. He leaped to open car doors.”

“You are a cold and heartless woman. If Nick opened a car door for me, I’d faint.” Francie threw her arms in the air, fingers spread to the sky.

Grant, a block away, had turned to look at them. Her movement seemed good humored, and he smiled involuntarily. He’d seen her before with Jane Mavroulos. She was leggy with long black hair and blue eyes. She seemed deeply familiar to him, same DNA or something.

An attractive woman was usually followed in his imagination by a crowd of parents, sisters and brothers, old friends, ex-lovers, children from a divorce, uncles and aunts; he would have to know them all. This woman seemed more alone. Her arms lowered. He shrugged and continued around the corner to the post office where he signed for a special delivery.

“Looks like my passport, Axel.”

“You taking off again?”

“Guess so. Couple of months. Patsy will collect my mail.”

“O.K., I’ll tell Bart. Where you headed?”

“India.”

“Good time to go; we got us a warm one today, but you know it won’t last.”

“I know it.” Grant shook his head. “Keep ’em flying, Axel.”

He walked home enjoying the first signs of spring, reddening buds on the trees, small streams rushing. Axel had retired from the Air Force, what, ten years ago? People like Axel helped make sticking around worthwhile. People who knew you when. You knew them when. A little conversation went a long way.

That night he went to a party at Sharon Stinson’s. He was pouring himself a drink when Jane Mavroulos held out her glass beside his.

“While you’re at it. How are you, Grant?”

“Jes fine, Jane. How are you and Nick doing? How’s that shoulder?”

“We’re good. Shoulder’s better. Body’s getting to the point where if something doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t work. This is my friend, Francie.” Grant put out his hand.

“Grant Kavanagh.”

“Frances Killian.” She regarded him calmly, not needing to strain to look him in the eye. Her fingers were long.

“Excuse me,” Jane said. “Nick seems to be wanting something” Once again, Grant faced assessment. He felt like a lion who had dashed from one line of beaters to another. This beater was unusually good looking. Grant forgot to let go of Frances’s hand and was embarrassed when she raised her eyebrows and opened her fingers.

“I’m sorry. I was staring. Your eyes—they’re like horses coming over a gate. I wish I could paint.”

“Janey told me you write about art.”

“I do. Or, I have. I don’t know what to do next.”

“Get small,” she said.

“What?”

Frances extended her right arm, palm up, fingers together. Her fingers began to close slowly as her wrist bent toward her and the angle at her elbow increased. Her knees bent slightly, and she began to turn, gathering inward, wrist coming to rest on her breast, head tipped slightly forward and to one side, eyes lowered. She was still for a second, then straightened.

“Something like that,” she said. “I’ve got to slow down before I can feel what’s next. Not that it’s easy; it’s like dying, almost.”

“I’ll think about that. When I’m really stuck, I take a trip. I’m going to India on Friday.”

“I love India. Will you be traveling around or staying put somewhere?”

“I like to go to one place and mostly stay there. I’ll be in Dharamsala.”

“I had a good time in Dharamsala.”

“You did?”

“I went for a week and stayed two months.”

“Really? What were you doing?”

“Hanging out with the monks, mostly. I was interested in their ceremonies. I’m a dancer.”

“I see that.”

“Hello, Grant.”

“Hey, Nick.”

“Look, Grant, one of these days let’s get together, talk about your woodlot. I have some ideas that can make us both happy.”

“Always ready to talk, Nick. But, when I get back.”

“I heard you were heading out. Watch it! Don’t get married this time.”

“Not this time. I’m staying in a monastery.”

“I remember those pictures you took. Very scenic. Get back in one piece.”

“Do my best.”

Frances had moved away with Jane, and Grant decided to go home. He thanked Sharon and waved at Frances on the way out. She didn’t notice.

Saturday morning, after an overnight to DeGaulle, Grant boarded an Air France flight to Delhi. His seat was next to an Indian man, middle-aged, with bright dark eyes. The Indian, whose name was Udayan, was returning from a literary conference.

“They love me in Paris. The plane is full of writers.”

“I’ve written a couple of books,” Grant said.

“Ah. When I saw you, I thought—he’s either an artist or he has been to India many times.”

“Some of each. Not so sure about artist. I like art, write about it, in fact.”

Udayan was in a good mood. “I was up very late last night eating Chinese food, drinking wine. Talking and talking.”

“How was the conference?”

“Very big. I was a keynote speaker, and they asked me what I liked about France. I said it was easier to tell them what I didn’t like. Two things: the food—it is so bland and tasteless.”

“Jesus!”

“Then I said, The Eiffel Tower. It is ridiculous! It is a toy; toys should fit in the hand of a child.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t throw you in jail.”

Udayan chuckled. “My interpreter said I was disappointed by the tower, but that I saw it in bad light in the early morning. I think he was saving me. Do you know Hindi?”

“No, I’m sorry to say.”

“You should really try to learn it. English is too pale for India. We are a pagan snake-charming culture, damnit all! You know, I am thinking we writers are all talking to each other, all over the world. It is good.”

Udayan wound down and fell asleep over the Black Sea. They passed above the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, snow covered on the mountains, the Karakorams, and Pakistan, flying away from the sun into onrushing dark and, finally, over the subcontinent, world within a world, and down at Delhi. Udayan said goodbye and shouted cheerful exchanges in Hindi with security guards.

Grant stood in the customs line for foreigners. This was his fourth trip. Between visits, he forgot the heat, the intensity, the press of the people, the vivid colors, the sense of how muted he was by comparison, a walking island surrounded by life that he could see and hear and smell but not quite touch.

Usually he stayed two nights in Little Tibet adjusting to the ten and a half hour time change and getting ready for the long bus or train and cab ride to Dharamsala, but a new airport had just opened in Kangra. He had reservations for a flight the next morning, so he stayed in a hotel near the airport.

The flight was a revelation—barely an hour, lifting off from Delhi and over the baking green and gold fields of Punjab to Pathankot, a nine-hour trip on the train. He remembered the tens of thousands living along the tracks in cardboard and tin shacks, tattered tents of cloth and plastic, or just sleeping in the open. Didn’t see them at all from the plane.

A quick hop to Kangra and a forty-five minute taxi ride took him to McLeod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, at five thousand feet, fifteen hundred feet above the town of Dharamsala. Full summer. Flowers blooming. Curving terraces of wheat. Alpine meadows above them on the last highest foothills. Gray rock, the sharp snow capped ridges and peaks of the Dhauladhar, ten thousand feet higher, bear and leopard country, a band that stretched more than a thousand miles across northern India and Nepal. Grant remembered an Indian making a sudden throaty call, sharp and then constricted. You hear that at night, you know your dog is gone, he’d said.

The five streets of McLeod Ganj were crowded with trekkers, monks and nuns in burgundy robes, tourists from Australia, Japan, Israel, and Europe, Indian shopkeepers, Tibetan children, cars, scooters, Suzuki van cabs, three-wheeler cabs, cows, and load packing mules. Monkeys peered from rooftops. Kites circled overhead. Good smells from food stands reminded him that he had to be careful about what he ate.

“Mister, Mister, your shoes are very dirty, sir. You need shine.”

“No, maybe tomorrow.”

“Very dirty, sir. Please.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“You promise?”

“O.K., maybe tomorrow.”

“You promise?”

He bought a bottle of water and descended a long set of steps and a steep path to the monastery where he had reserved a room. The noise of the town faded above him. The valley below stretched green and sunny into a hazy distance. He stopped and put down his bag. Bees moved from flower to flower.

At the front room of the main building, he presented his passport to a short monk with chubby cheeks. “Tashi delek.”

“Tashi delek. How are you, Mr. Grant?”

“Good. Hot and tired.”

“You must relax after your long trip, Mr. Grant.”

The monk led him to a yellow cement building at the lower edge of the compound, where they climbed steps to a row of small rooms with wooden doors that overlooked the valley. There was a shared toilet in a nearby building. Grant thanked the monk and lay down on the single bed.

He awoke thirsty and disoriented in the late afternoon. Images from the trip careened around his mind. He walked back up to town and ate dinner in an Indian restaurant, dal and rice, chai, safe food. He’d forgotten to bring his flashlight, so he returned down the hill before dark.

Besides the bed, there was nothing in his room but a standing metal wall locker, a small table, one light, and a plastic chair. He brought the chair out in front of the door and stared over the low cement wall into the twilight. He seemed to be the only one staying there. Birds called, settling in for the night. A half moon rose over the ridge to his left. He went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

At three in the morning he was wide awake. It was too early to get anything to eat in town. He lay there picturing his kitchen at home. “The farm,” his father always called it. The field was still hayed, but it had been many years since there were cows in the barn and chickens behind the house. His father had done a good job converting the barn and two outbuildings into living space. “Your grandfather and great-grandfather are probably shaking their heads up there, but this land is too valuable to farm.” Grant had helped off and on for twenty years, weekends and between his father’s building jobs in town. After his mother died, his father just worked harder. Now there were five good apartments with nice light, views of the field, plenty of space.

His father had connected with Milly Planetree after her divorce. “O.K., Grant,” he’d said one day, “it’s all yours. I’ve been taking care of this place my whole life; it’s time for something different. Milly and I are going to Florida. It’s your turn.”

“What are you going to do down there?”

“I can still work. Milly’s got some money. Social Security. What more do I need?”

Gave him the whole place. It was a fair amount of work to keep things up, but he had the freedom to do what he wanted most of the time—as long as he kept expenses down. Beat hell out of working for someone else.

He fell asleep again and woke to birds singing. He walked through the monastery, listening to the buzz and drone of chanting coming through an open door. He met no one on the path. In town, close to the temple, he found an open café. It was small, run by Tibetans, nearly filled with westerners and monks. He asked an American if he could share his table.

“Sure.”

“I’m Grant.”

“Ted, here.”

Ted was a Nam vet with sad eyes. He was burly, good humored on the surface, a regular at the Tenyang Coffee Shop in the early morning. He had retired from a computer programming job and come to live in India. During the next week, they exchanged stories. Grant told him about a girl he’d seen.

“She was about seven years old, standing in the doorway of the refugee place on Jogibara. She was watching me with big eyes. I wanted to pick her up and tell her everything was going to be O.K. She had her mouth set against disappointment; she knew I was going to keep walking. I felt terrible. Maybe I should adopt her.”

“I know,” Ted said. “I got friendly with a Nepali family. They have a daughter who is beautiful and really smart. They live just up the hill in a little shack. I used to sit around with them in their yard. I tried to help out with money now and then. We bought clothes for the girl. They’d ask me for help with this or that emergency. Only it turned out they were lying; they were making things up and drinking the money. I wanted to help the girl, see, but the money went through them. I had it out with them a couple of times, said, ’Look, you can’t lie to me, or I can’t help you.’ But they kept doing it, and they wouldn’t let me see the girl.” He was upset.

“Too bad,” Grant said.

“Yeah. It’s tricky.” Ted considered. “There’s a lot of phonies around here, but there are good people, too. People you can learn from.”

“I love the faces,” Grant said. “The old people walking kora around the temple early in the morning—some of them barely walking—so open and radiant.”

“Some of the young ones have it too,” Ted said, “but a lot of them are into Hondas, hot bikes.”

Across McLeod Ganj, visitors were having similar conversations, comparing experiences, sharing opinions. Grant had met Daisy that way and ended up married in Melbourne. They’d parted friends after two years.

He took long walks, letting memories float to the surface and move along. There were no pressures on him here, no phone ringing with needs to be filled. He was generally silent, apart from restaurant conversations. As he lost his winter weight and became rested, he began to sense something knotted or lodged in his chest, a heaviness, a constriction. The weeks passed, and he felt steadily worse.

Late one afternoon, when he was feeling particularly oppressed, he stopped by an eroded gully on the Jogibara Road. Large gray-brown stones balanced irregularly on each other in their slow tumble toward the plains. On the flatter surfaces, mantras were chiseled and painted in prayer flag colors. Weeds with tiny flowers of a brilliant blue edged the rocks and dirt. The immediacy of the flowers, the presence of the mantra carvers, thousands of years of Buddhism, the erosion of the Himalayas, vibrated together in different time scales. As he stood there, his inner weight lightened. Twenty minutes later he walked on, ready for a meal.

Once or twice a day, he stopped at a cyber café to check his email and browse the internet. Frances Killian wrote to say hello and that his book was being used in a course in one of the schools where she taught dance. He answered immediately:

“I’m glad to sell a few books, but it makes me feel strange. I was just trying to figure out what makes great art great, what is lasting. I hate the idea of people using my words to be—I don’t know—politically correct, reducing works of art. I should have put a warning in the book.

“I’m going to stay here another month at least, maybe two. I was just in a café where a waiter was wearing a T-shirt that said, You’ll never guess who I was. Whoever I was, I don’t think I am anymore. Want to have some coffee when I get back? Where do you live, anyway?”

He was descending the path to the monastery, the day he heard from Frances, when he felt a sudden need for a toilet. It became urgent and he went behind a bush. He hadn’t gotten his pants down before a rush of shit poured out, half on the ground, half down his legs. He pulled up his pants and walked slowly back to his room. Luckily, no one stopped him for conversation. He cleaned himself and washed his underwear, pants, and socks.

For two days he stayed in his room, making regular trips to the toilet. The monks brought him water, tea, and rice. He was depressed. No matter how careful he was, India got him sooner or later. A few days in bed weren’t so bad, but he felt old and out of place.

Four days later, he was fully recovered. He bought a pair of hiking boots for a Tibetan baker named Achi who had taken his mother’s money and fled over the mountains without saying goodbye. After seven years, sadness and guilt had overtaken him; he was going to try and sneak back into Tibet that winter, when the rivers would be frozen and the Chinese patrols fewer.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting shot or thrown in jail?”

Achi had spread his arms and smiled—a smile that accepted death and the injustices and follies of life with a depth that made Grant feel like a child.

India reveals you to yourself. As the days passed, Grant felt increasingly barren and alone. He hadn’t lived with anyone since Shelley and David. David was a good kid, big-hearted, a little wild, what you’d expect from a teenager. They’d had their battles, but Grant had held his ground, given him room, been fair. They’d come to respect each other. Even to like each other. Wiped out in a stupid crash. Bad company. Bad luck.

Shelley had crumbled, left her job at the end of the semester, gone back to California and never returned. Her first marriage was a disaster, and her marriage to him was mostly about David, as it turned out. It was good for five or six years. They did things together on weekends and in the summer. David grew. And then—gone. He pushed the memory down.

One morning he was standing on Temple Road wondering whether Santosh, a young painter he had met, would open his tiny stall earlier or later. A light mist was lifting through the pines. Someone was looking at him. He turned and saw first the smile, then the blue eyes and black hair, Frances Killian.

“Hi, Grant.”

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

“Getting out of Dodge. I’ve got a few weeks off.”

He was so surprised that he forgot to be defensive. “Amazing! Let’s have chai or something.” They walked to Moon Peak café.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. She hung a beige pashmina scarf on the back of a chair and sat down comfortably. She was wearing a dark blue silk shirt over loose cotton pants. Flip flops. “You look great, right at home. When did you get here?”

“Day before yesterday. I thought I’d run into you. I was going to send you an email if I didn’t.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I’ve got a room at the Snow Lion.”

“I’m down the hill at the monastery. Very nice there. Peaceful.”

“I live in Stamford. I didn’t answer your email.”

“Oh. About forty-five minutes from me.”

“You’re looking very brown,” she said.

“Haven’t done much since I got here but walk around.”

“So fun,” she said, “just to look.”

“There’s a lake I’ve never seen, past the Tibetan Children’s Village. Want to walk up there one of these days?”

“How about tomorrow?”

They talked for an hour about themselves and about Dharamsala. When they parted, Grant was surprised at how relaxed they were with each other.

The next morning at nine, they met at the bus stop. They walked out of town past a line of taxis and tourist jeeps and along a narrow road cut into the mountain. Half an hour later, they could look across at McLeod Ganj, colorful in the sunlight, silent at that distance. It was cool in the forest. There were few cars. One elderly Tibetan passed them, walking in the other direction, fingering wooden beads. The road bent around the face of the ridge where fields had been cleared. They walked past another road that led down the ridge to a several clusters of buildings. They saw a line of identical large trucks and heard orders coming from a loudspeaker. “The army,” Grant said, “same everywhere.”

Two guys came by on a scooter and turned into the TCV grounds. Grant and Frances continued up a hill past several Indian shops and then a closed storefront that advertised espresso on a hand painted sign. “Too bad,” Frances said.

The lake was a quarter mile around, fitted neatly below steep wooded slopes, a pond, really, created by a small dam. A ceremonial path led around the quiet water. Half an hour later, they were headed back down the hill. The espresso shop was open—three bare tables, a counter, no one visible. They walked in and waited. A young Tibetan with bright eyes emerged from a back room and made coffee for them. He put on a CD, and the room filled with reggae.

“The sound of Jamaica,” Grant said, “all the way over here.”

“It’s universal,” Frances said, tapping her fingers on the table.

“It’s true—the other day in town I saw a Tibetan teenager wearing a T-shirt that said, No woman Nuh cry. It was pink with white lettering.” He paused. “David listened to reggae all the time.” The obstruction in him got larger.

“He was my stepson. Killed in a car accident. He played bass. You would have liked him. Kind of a clumsy kid. He had these eyebrows that dived down between big eyes. You looked at him and you knew he was always doing his best.” Grant’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. He swallowed and tried to talk. He swallowed again. “I’m having trouble here.” Frances put a hand on his forearm. She was calm, knowing, satisfied, even.

Grant breathed deeply a couple of times. “I miss him.” He choked up again and tears rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried. He swallowed his espresso, and smiled helplessly at Frances. “More coffee?”

“Sure,” she said.

He went to the counter and pointed at the large speakers. “Very good!”

“It is the great Bob Marley,” the Tibetan said, eyes gleaming. Grant made a fist the way David used to and then returned to the table.

“Sorry. The reggae. And this guy—he reminds me a little of David.” When the waiter brought the coffee, he asked if the music was too loud. “Cannot hear it,” Grant said. The Tibetan grinned and turned up the volume. No woman, nuh cry ... I remember when we used to sit in the Government yard in Trenchtown ... Everyone, anywhere, who ever remembered being with someone special, was there in Bob Marley’s voice. Something lifted in Grant’s chest. He felt a living rush, heart and mind merging.

Frances’s head moved with the beat. The rhythm spread to her shoulders and back. She danced herself upright, and Grant followed stiffly. Bit by bit he relaxed and let the sound move him. He wasn’t showing off, the way he used to. Neither was Frances. She seemed completely free, although she danced in a small area. Later, outside, he would hold her and, for the first time in many years, if not ever, surrender, trust totally, his head hanging over her shoulder, but now they danced on the plywood floor, between a framed photograph of the Dalai Lama, adorned with a white silk scarf, and a FREE TIBET slogan painted in red on the boards of the opposite wall, ... Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta ... renewing, honoring, celebrating, letting passion burn them clean.

The Maroons

Diego watched a pigeon pick up a twig with its beak, balance it, and fly away in a straight line. Instinct? How could they be born knowing how to build a nest? Big Ben chimed, and Diego reached for his cell phone. He straightened on the park bench. “Hola.”

“Max L., here.”

“Sentient,” Diego said. The code word.

“Nine, tonight. Base camp. Don’t be yourself.”

“Nine tonight, base camp. Full stealth. It’s a loss to the world.”

“For everything there is a season,” Maximum Leader said, hanging up.

It was a cool morning in early spring. Diego stood, rolled his shoulders, and walked with a slight limp across the cobblestones. He was medium sized, squarely built. A close black beard partially covered a birthmark on his lower jaw. His eyes were light blue, almost gray.

“The calling,” he explained to the bronze sculpture of a kneeling lobsterman. He could wear the orthodox outfit—the hat brim, dark glasses, and extravagant beard hid his face completely. The long coat was warm, but it wasn’t made for running. Max sounded intense. When wasn’t he? Better to be the Celtic wanderer.

The Celtic wanderer usually appeared in warmer weather, but he could wear a turtleneck under the T-shirt, long johns under the patched linen pants. Everyone was going crazy with the cold weather. The wanderer had made a mistake, that’s all, come north too soon.

Diego kept his disguises in separate bags at the bottoms of other bags in his closet. He had different sunglasses and different shoes for each. In a nylon belt pack, he kept cotton gloves, a small flashlight, alternative ID, and his savings account—a roll of twenties that fluctuated in value, sometimes decreasing to zero.

Base camp was at the corner of Gray and Park streets, a neutral neighborhood two blocks from Dogfish Market. He was there five minutes early wearing a plain blue jacket, leaning against a tree, facing away from cars coming down Park. Max was strict on procedure. He’d drive around the block until he could make the pickup unobserved. A white Toyota passed and turned left down Danforth. Shortly afterward, the van pulled to a stop. Diego got in quickly.

“Rations secured,” Max said. He parked a block from Commercial Street and opened two bottles of Gritty’s Best Bitter. “Support your local brew pub.”

“No piss water,” Diego said. He unwrapped a roast beef Italian. “Dogfish?”

“Of course.”

“Good place.” One thing about Max—he fed his troops. It made sense; you can’t think on an empty stomach.

“I’m going to miss it,” Max said.

“What?”

“I’m out of here, Buddy. This is my last mission—at least for a while.”

Diego chewed in silence. “The calling, Max.”

“I’m getting married.”

“No shit! Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I was going to say something last time, but you know the procedures. The less we know about each other, the better.”

Diego raised his ale. “The few, the proud, the Maroons!” They clinked bottles. “Max, I’ve been wondering—how do birds learn to make nests?”

“They’re hard-wired, born that way.”

“How can that be? They could be copying other birds, but some bird would have had to be first. I don’t know.” He brightened. “Anyway, congratulations. You’re going to raise little Maroons. Where there was one, there will be many.”

Max sighed. “Yes. But, it will be different.” He handed Diego an envelope. “Severance.”

“Much obliged.” Diego folded the envelope and put it in his pocket. This was serious. “So, what’s the mission?”

Max pointed at a large box in the back of the van. “Illumination,” he said. “You know those new hotels in the Old Port—the one by Dewey’s and the one going up by the ferry terminal?” Diego nodded. Max lowered his voice. “Fake brick. The outsides are fake brick.”

“I hate that shit,” Diego said.

“You know what they call it? Thin brick. Thin brick. Jesus. They actually mortar the little fake bricks, bricklets, thin bricks,” Max was sputtering, “you have to know what you’re doing to tell the difference. You start out with all these beautiful old brick buildings; you add fake brick buildings; and pretty soon you don’t know which is which. They’re all fake or might be. You’ve lost the old brick.” He stared through the van window. “Little metal ears. Little ears stick out of galvanized strips. They glue on the fake bricks and then mortar the cracks. You know what holds the metal strips to the building?” Max was winding up again. “Staples! They staple the strips to the cement board. Can you believe it? The whole wall is held on by staples. Somebody might ask: if you can’t tell the difference, what is the difference? Well, come back in a hundred years, Goddamnit!”

“I hate that shit,” Diego said.

Max finished his ale. “I have alerted the media,” he said.

Diego retrieved the red wig and the headband from his pack, put them on, and adjusted his sunglasses. “Ready,” he said, although he wasn’t, quite. It was strange thinking that he wouldn’t be seeing Max again.

“Target: Hilton,” Max said. His voice was deep, musical, at odds with his stiff frame, all angles. “Another projector raid.” He pointed to the box. “There’s two in there, both lasers.”

“Spare no expense,” Diego said.

“I put them together from parts. They are tested at 150 feet. I’ve got them labeled ‘L’ and ‘R’ for left, right.”

“Where do they go?”

“Top deck of the ferry terminal parking garage.”

“What about power?”

“There’s an extension cord in the box. Also a sign that says, Danger — Electrified — Do Not Touch. You need to tape the sign on the cord right by the projectors.”

“Tape in the box?”

“That’s a 10-4, buddy.”

“Just checking,” Diego said. “Where’s the outlet?”

“There’s an exit door by Commercial Street—on the right. The outlet is just inside the door.” Max took a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Diego. “In case anyone asks what you’re doing.”

“Jerry Geraldson, Hilton Productions,” Diego read.

“Probably won’t be anyone up there, but you never know. I’ll drop you by the side of the terminal. The elevator is out of sight from the toll booth. Go up to the top, and walk across to the exit door. You can unpack inside the stairway. The door’s hung badly; there’s enough room for the cord to go under it on the handle side. On the front facade by the street, there’s a flat copper top where you can set up the projectors.”

“Exit route?”

“Down the same stairs. There are four wedges in the box. On the way down, jam each door from the inside. The street door is locked and only opens out. That ought to delay them a few minutes, anyway.”

“Sweet,” Diego said.

“When I see the projectors come on, I’ll call in the strike, tell the media where to pick up the handouts. I’ll place them after I drop you.” He gave Diego a key. “The van will be in the Ben-Kay sushi lot. You can change inside. Leave the key under the mat on the driver’s side.”

Diego followed procedure and repeated the instructions.

“Where do you want them aimed?”

“I’m thinking—over the main entrance. But do whatever looks best once you’re up there.” Max started the van and drove down Commercial Street. He pulled in by the terminal. “I won’t be seeing you for a while.”

“Good luck,” Diego said. He put on his gloves, went around to the back doors, and dragged out the box.

“Mock on,” Max said.

“Mock on, man.” Diego closed the doors and carried the box to the elevator as Max drove away. He rested one edge on his belt, pushed the button for the top deck, and waited as the elevator rose. The harbor appeared suddenly, startling him; he hadn’t realized that the back wall of the elevator was made of plexiglass. The water was black, reflecting streaks and sparkles of light. Two offshore drilling rigs under construction floated silently, welders and riggers gone for the night.

The elevator door slid open. Only a few cars and trucks were parked on the top ramp; no one was around. The sea air was more noticeable at that height, soft, muddy smelling.

Diego walked deliberately down the ramp and across to the exit door. Turning sideways, he got one hand on the handle and pushed the door open. A dim light inside showed the stairs. The outlet was where Max had said. He put the box down and took a deep breath. His heart was beating faster. It wasn’t as though he was committing a murder, but he didn’t want to get caught. Not at this point. One or two Maroon expeditions had gotten out of control; damage had been done, the authorities mocked. They were pissed. They would throw the book at the first Maroon they caught.

Diego opened the box. The projectors were less alarming than the orange extension cord, so he carried them out first, setting them on the façade next to where the wall rose vertically in a false front. Used to be funny to see false fronts in westerns, propped above the dusty street, overlooking the gun fight—endearing, almost. Now the whole culture was going that way. Car lights swung up onto the deck. Diego stepped quickly into the stairwell and held the door open a crack.

Two guys got out of a Cherokee and rode down in the elevator. Get this over with, he said to himself. He plugged in the extension cord, passed it under the door, and unrolled it along the wall. It reached with six feet to spare. Max knew his stuff. Diego taped the phoney warning sign on the cord and against the wall, facing out.

He turned on the L projector and pushed the target button, looking across the street for a disk of white light. He didn’t see it. He lifted the projector and swung it slowly, picking up the movement about three stories high. He adjusted down until the spot was just above the entrance. Perfect. He did the same with the other and looked behind him. The ramp was still deserted.

Diego flipped the main switches and moved behind the false front. He looked around the edge and saw a bright comic book corona around the words, FAKE BRICK. A few feet to the right, blinking slowly on and off,were three lines:

ANOTHER PUBLIC
ANNOUNCEMENT
BY THE MAROONS

“Mock on,” Diego said in a low voice. “Time to go.” Once inside the stairwell, he moved fast, jamming each door on the way down. He paused at the bottom for a moment, pushed open the door, and sauntered away. He didn’t look back. He was the Celtic wanderer, heading for sushi.

The van was in a corner of the lot. He let himself in and stashed the sunglasses, headband, and wig in his pack. He put on his jacket and left the key.

He walked back on Fore Street, avoiding the Hilton. Why take chances? Max had the media jumping through hoops. They would be down there with cameras. Cops. His job was to get in and get out. Professional all the way.

Adrenaline pushed Diego along. He was almost to Dewey’s before he slowed down. He passed the other fake brick hotel and walked into familiar sounds and the smell of beer and smoke and french fries. He took a seat at the end of the bar.

He ordered a pint of Guinness and sat quietly, glad not to talk to anyone. It had been an interesting couple of years—temp work and service with the Maroons. He opened the envelope Max had given him. $500. Good old Max. He didn’t know where Max got the money, and he didn’t ask. It was over now. Max—getting married. Diego felt a rightness about it.

His mind kept drifting back to Honolulu, the Ala Moana shopping center. He’d think about other things—Maine, his room with the view of roofs and Portland harbor—Kiersten, too alcoholic for him, probably playing pool right down the street—and then he’d be back in Hawaii at the cab stand on the lower level of the shopping center. A rainy day, warm and gray. Two Japanese men in their 60’s, nylon jackets, baseball caps, were waiting for a bus, talking story, laughing about their drinking days. “I cut way back, now,” one said. The other made a deep-in-the-throat sympathetic sound. The bus came, and as the two men boarded, in Diego’s mind’s eye, he remembered the pigeon flying away with its twig, making a nest as warm and secure as the one it remembered.

Time to go back to the islands, he said to himself and felt peace entering between his shoulderblades. He patted the envelope in his pocket. At the cab stand in the shopping center, there was an old driver with an artificial leg who used to limp around his white Chevy to open the door for passengers. He had a smile that was total, free, like the universe. Be good to see him again. You can only do so much, and then you’ve got to reconnect—you know—get centered. Be thankful for awhile.

Waiting for Happiness

Spring comes late in Maine. Snow changes to rain; branch tips redden; you can see your breath. Not a whole lot different than winter until the daffodils, crab apples, and forsythia bloom. The sun skips off the water, impossibly bright, impossibly blue. You can almost almost hear the cracking of seeds, buried and forgotten.

Charlie Garrett was as hardnosed as most. He kept going, did what he had to. “Ninety percent of success is showing up,” Woody Allen said. Charlie repeated that in dire times—before medical checkups or visits to his brother, Orson.

Orson knew a lot about success and never hesitated to pass it on. “What you need, Charlie, is a Cessna. You aren’t supposed to spin them, but you can. That’ll clear your head, Charlie, straight down, counting as a barn comes around—one time, two times, three times—correct and pull out nice and easy.” Orson dipped his knees, lowering his flattened palm. Or a catboat: “A solid little Marshall, Charlie. Putter around, take some cutie coasting. You’re in sailor heaven, man, all those islands.”

“I know some cuties,” his wife, Miranda, had said.

“Last cutie took my silver garlic press. Well, she didn’t take it; she borrowed it and never returned it.”

“Call her up and get it back,” Orson said.

“That’s what she wants you to do.” Miranda was the best thing about Orson.

“I got another one.”

“Where the hell did you find a silver garlic press?” Orson was impressed.

“It’s aluminum, I think, or a composite material.”

“Oh.”

It was always like that; motion was Orson’s answer to everything. Charlie stretched and checked his watch. The ten o’clock ferry from Peaks Island was edging to the dock. Soon a few dozen passengers would walk off the ramp, carrying shopping bags, slipping day packs over one or both shoulders, holding dogs on leashes. Margery, short and polite, would be toward the end of the line, one hand on the railing, blinking as she looked up at the city buildings and around for him.

They were similar physically and recognized each other as related, not lovers, not brother and sister, but distant cousins perhaps or members of a tribe—the patient, the witness bearers. “There you are,” she said. Charlie stood and they patted one another’s shoulders.

“You look very well, not a day over forty,” Charlie said, standing back. “Here, let me  take that.” She handed him a stout canvas bag. “Jesus! What’s in here?”

“Rocks and books. You’re looking pleased with life. How’s the world of architecture?”

“All right. Still looking for the perfect client.” He rubbed his stomach with his free hand and pointed across the street to Standard Baking Company. “Croissants,” he said. “A croissant a day keeps the doctor away. Are you hungry?”

“No. Let’s get on with it.”

Charlie led the way to his car, an elderly red Volvo. “Rocinante,” Margery remembered.

“As good as ever.” Charlie lowered the bag into the back seat.

“Could we swing by the library? I need to return these books.”

“Sure. What have you been reading?”

“Tolstoy. The Russians. Dostoyevsky, Chekhov.”

“That’ll get you through a long night.”

“There’s no one like Tolstoy,” Margery said. “So serene. Cosmic and down to earth at the same time.”

“I wrote a novel once,” Charlie said.

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t very good.” Charlie stopped by the library book drop.

“At least you finished.”

He watched her slide three souls and twenty years work through the brass slot. “There’s a story I love about Chekhov,” she said, getting back into the car. “He paid a visit to Tolstoy. Late in the evening, on his way home after a certain amount of wine, he cried out to his horse and to the heavens: ‘He says I’m worse than Shakespeare. Worse than Shakespeare!’”

“Wonderful,” Charlie said. “Chekhov—didn’t he die after a last swallow of champagne?”

“It was sad,” Margery said. She turned and stared out the side window.

They drove out of town in silence. The cemetery where Margery’s father and son were buried was an hour and a half up the coast and midway down a long peninsula. The drive had become an annual event. Margery had no car. Charlie drove her one year and then had just continued. This was, what, the fourth or fifth trip? He couldn’t remember.

“Margery, did you see that picture of President Bush on the carrier deck, wearing the pilot get up?”

“I did.”

“The little son of a bitch went AWOL when he was in the National Guard. I read that it delayed the troops their homecoming by a day and cost a million dollars.”

“Light comedy,” Margery said. “The Emperor Commodus fancied himself a gladiator. Romans had to watch him fight in the colosseum many times. He never lost. His opponents were issued lead swords.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Charlie said. “Commodus?”

“Second century, A.D. We’re not a police state, yet. Things get really crazy under one man rule. Have you not read Gibbon?”

“The Decline and Fall—never got around to it.”

“Good for perspective,” Margery said.

“That green!” Charlie waved at the trees along I-95. “Only for a week.”

“Yes.” Margery settled into her seat. Perspective was a good thing, Charlie thought. Even keel and all that. But there was something to be said for losing it. If he could have his choice of cuties, he’d just as soon have one of those dark-eyed Mediterranean fireballs—breasts, slashing smile—someone who spoke with her whole body.

They arrived at the cemetery in good time. Margery declined his offer to carry the special rocks, wanting to bring them herself. They were intended to protect the base of a rugosa she’d planted the previous year. As usual, Charlie accompanied her and then returned to the car. She would take as long as she needed to arrange the rocks and to say or hear or feel whatever she could.

Charlie had no children; it was hard to imagine what she felt. Her son had skidded on a slick road and been wiped out by a logging truck, a stupid accident, pure bad luck. Her father had died later the same year. Margery had been on hold since, he supposed, although he hadn’t known her when she was younger. The lines in her face seemed to have been set early. We were all full of hope once, he thought.

He leaned against the car and watched a man approach. The man was carrying a shovel. He had a white handlebar moustache and a vaguely confederate look. “Hey,” Charlie said.

“Yup,” the man said. He stopped and  leaned on his shovel.

“Nice day,” Charlie said, after a moment.

“Yessir. Black flies ain’t woke up yet.”

“Don’t disturb them.”

“No. Jesus, no. I guess we got a couple of days yet.” He tested the ground with the shovel and looked into the cemetery. “Margery Sewell,” he said.

“You know Margery?”

“Since she was about so high.” He gestured toward his knees. “Used to go smelting with her father, Jack.”

“I’m Charlie, friend of Margery’s.”

“Tucker,” the man said. “Tucker Smollett.”

“That’s an old name.”

“Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both.” They stared into the graveyard. “You from around here, then?” He knew that Charlie was from away; he was being polite.

“Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine.”

“Well, then.” The world divides into people who have been hungry and those who haven’t. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some you didn’t. “I’ll tell you one thing,” Tucker said, “there weren’t nobody smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes, awards—some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was. Can’t recall.”

Charlie nodded. “She’s a professor—classics—Latin and Greek.”

“It don’t surprise me,” Tucker said.

They talked, from time to time glancing into the graveyard. Tucker was waiting for Margery, Charlie realized. When she appeared, she was walking slowly. Her head was up but her attention was dragging, as though she were pulling part of herself left behind. She was nearly to them before she focused. “Hello, Tucker.”

“Hello, Margery.”

“Good to see you,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

“Yep. Since the service, I guess.” Tucker straightened. He seemed younger.

“Tucker lived up the road from us,” she said to Charlie. “He made me the most marvelous rocking horse. I think that was the nicest present I ever got. When William—” She swallowed. “When—I’m sorry.” She turned away. “William loved it too,” she said in a low voice.

There wasn’t anything to say. Margery gathered herself and turned back to them.

Tucker cleared his throat. “I was—thinking you might come over for a bite to eat, for old times sake.” Charlie expected Margery to decline, but something in the old man’s tone had caught her attention.

“Well, that’s nice of you. You have time, don’t you, Charlie?”

“Plenty of time.” A few years earlier, she had shown him where she lived, not far from the cemetery. “Ride or walk?”

“Ride,” Tucker said. “I’ll just put this shovel in the shed.”

Tucker’s house was a weathered collection of gray boxes that were settling away from each other. A reddish dog got down from a couch on the porch and came to meet them. There was white around her muzzle. “Company, Sally. Margery Sewall and her friend, Charlie.” The dog received Tucker’s hand on her head and greeted them, sniffing each in turn. “Sally don’t see as well as she used to—do you girl?” Her tail wagged as she led them to the house.

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