Student Teacher

I had the most incredible sense of wellbeing when I awoke the next morning--feeling alive and refreshed--and it made no sense because I had, for all practical purposes, just recommitted myself to the life of a fugitive.  But the delicate butterfly lying next to me in bed had rejuvenated me, instilling a sense of hope and purpose in this tired, jaded individual.  As I cautiously slid out from under the sheet, careful not to wake her, I stood gazing down at this perfect creature, reveling in the words she had spoken to me last evening:  "If you want me I'm yours--not just for tonight, but forever."

Peering through a window at the new morning I heard her rustle the covers, and when I turned to see I noticed she had rolled onto her back.  And that's when the snoring started.  At first it was like one of those old internal-combustion chainsaws biting into a concrete knot in the center of a tree limb, but it soon crescendoed into a sound that could only be likened to the racket emanating from a TurboSaw, the weapon of destruction used by the Last Lumberjacks as they went about the business of deforesting huge swaths of the North American continent.  The adenoidal noise emanating from her nose and throat was so loud, so unpleasant, I had to step outside to get away.

I found myself in a beautiful open space between the guesthut and the main residence, a meticulously laid out garden with supple pine trees bending in a slight wind, separate beds of Star Jasmine flowers, and a pond replete with blooming red lotus blossoms.  At the far end of the pond was a Banyan tree, and beneath it a statue of a woman meditating in the Seiza Position.  At least I thought it was a statue until I began circling around the pond toward it.  Then I beheld the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, her skin a polished, light mahogany, her half-closed green-olive eyes suggesting oneness with her surroundings.  Her third eye was the brightest dot in the environment, like a ripe Maraschino cherry that had marinated for years in Red Dye #40. 

Her thin white sari, almost gauze-like in nature, made me sorry I couldn't see enough of the most well-proportioned upper torso I'd ever laid eyes on.  And even though this was the finest metaphysical creature I had ever come in contact with, I couldn't help but wonder how it would feel to cup those magnificent orbs in my hands.

"At last we meet," she said, never looking up to meet my gaze.

I turned around, trying to figure out who she was talking to.

"To whom she was talking," she said.

Turning back, I said, "Pardon?"

"When the teacher is ready the student will come, Mr. Rowe," she said.  "We were destined to meet."

"You're Indira?"

"Indira Hedlites, at your service."

"You seem an accomplished yogi."

"I studied under Maharishi Marrakesh Hashish Yogi," she said.  "Directly under him."

We were interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone, which she extracted from beneath the waistband of her sari.  Standing to reveal an unrippled expanse of mahogany midriff, she said to me, "One moment, please."  Then she said into the phone, "Thisis Monica, auwmay I elpbyu?"

She listened for at least thirty seconds before saying, "Andar uat yir compudr nauw, sr?"

It was as if the crisp, fluent English she had spoken only a minute before had immediately transmogrified into a mumbled pidgin.  Even though I was able, with difficulty, to discern what she was saying, I could only imagine that the man on the other end of the line was struggling to comprehend her.

She said, "Gotostard, clickcondrolbanl, clickuninstalchangebrogrm, findmysurgedilebrogrmndclickonit, clickuninstal.  Nauw ugoto manidjsurdjenginlistaddonsmanidjurndremoovmysurgediletoolbr."

After listening for another thirty seconds or so, she said, "Uarveriwelcumsir."

While she slipped the cell phone beneath her sari waistband she examined the perplexed look on my face.  "That?" she said.  "I provide technical support for Enness A Computer Systems, Incorporated."

"I see."

"Let's stop beating around the bush, shall we?  You are here because you have reached another impasse in your fictional journey and you seek guidance.  Up until now it has all been very entertaining, but it has no philosophical or spiritual underpinning.  It's like a bag of skin walking around with no skeleton underneath.  And all the energy you've expended on sexual matters seriously detracts from the substance of the book.  It's as if you've been studying booty-ism rather than Buddhism, so to speak."

"What do you suggest?"

"I suggest you come to my hut in the village tonight, after Zen and his daughter have gone to sleep."

"Is that wise?"

"It's the only way to enlightenment," she said, reaching again beneath the waistband of her sari.  Extracting a different cell than the one she had just talked on--a pearl-colored zPhone--she handed it to me, saying, "I will text you directions to my place."

"I'm a little leery."

"Don't be," she said.  "And--oh--before you come do a little Uninet research on Tantric Yoga."

"Tantric Yoga?"

"You've heard of it?"

"No."

"Good.  We should have mutually-satisfying intercourse then."

Character in Search of Author

When I got back to the guesthut Felicia had just finished packing a royal blue rucksack and was zipping it closed.  I could feel my eyebrows arch into a quizzical look, and when she saw it, she said, "My father and I have to travel to Creel for supplies.  We've been doing it together every few months for years.  I hope you don't mind.  We'll be back in two days."

"It's fine," I said.  "I'll hang around here.  I've got a lot of thinking to do."

"Thinking about what?"

"About what I'm going to do.  I'm AWOL from the BookForce.  Remember?"

"You can stay here with Dad and me.  And Indira."

"Neither of us should stay," I said.  "They'll have the Holmes Division searching for me, and the marshals already have you on the run."

"I can't keep running.  It's very hard to write a book when you're constantly on the move."

"You're writing a book?"

"Yes," she said, "it's a memoir called Creeping toward Creel."

"Is it your first?"

"Don't be silly, I've written ten books already."

"I'm impressed."

"You can take a look at some if you want," she said, gesturing with her feline chin to the desk in the corner of the space.  "They're all loaded on the iWear."

I followed her gaze to the sleek, polished silver glasses sitting in the middle of the desktop.  I said, "I've never seen those before."

"They're pretty neat," she said, going to retrieve them.  When she brought them over and handed the glasses to me, she said, "Try them on."

When I did I was looking at a blank white page as pure as the highest quality bond paper I'd seen in a museum as a child.

She said, "Give it the command 'TOC.'"

"TOC," I said, and a table of contents opened immediately.

"All you have to do is say the title you want to read, give it an 'open' command, and say 'next' to keep reading or 'back' to reexamine something.  Pretty basic stuff."

"Thanks."

"I'd better get going," she said.  "Help yourself to anything.  You know how to use the food and drink computer."

I followed her to the door and watched as she walked toward her father's hut.  A moment later I heard both of their voices as they made their way out of the village on the same path Felicia and I had taken in.

I sat in the commodious white-leather chair and was about to don the iWear when the zPhone Indira had given me--which was sitting in my pocket snuggled up against my crotch--began vibrating at massage speed.  I considered leaving it there for a moment longer, but pulled it out instead.  On the ample 3" X 5" screen was a map to Indira's hut.

That made me recall what she'd said about researching Tantric Yoga, and I immediately accessed the Uninet site to do a quick search.  What I found there made it crystal clear to me that the kind of intercourse Indira had talked about this morning certainly had little to do with "social" intercourse.

"The Tantric Yoga technique called Karezza is a method of prolonging intercourse without ejaculating. This practice synthesizes breath control, various yoga postures, meditation, and finger manipulation into the act of coitus. The goal is for the man to approach ejaculation without actually ejaculating. Orgasms sans ejaculation are exceedingly pleasurable, allowing coitus to continue for inordinate periods of time, thereby satisfying both male and female partners."


I read it again in order to assure understanding.

When I returned to the search page I found something called Tantra Yoga, which was completely different from what I'd just learned.  Tantra Yoga concerned itself with understanding the universal through the experience of the individual, a way of discovering the ideal of philosophy in daily life.

Surely that's what Indira referred to; after all, she had accused me of being too caught up in sexual gratification in my book, of favoring "booty-ism" over "Buddhism."

But I was certain she had said "Tantric Yoga."  Why would she use the word "intercourse" otherwise?

Feeling a bit peckish I went into the kitchen and typed "Baloney and Cheese Sandwich" onto the InstaMeal keypad.  When it came to choosing a drink I didn't hesitate:  a pint of NuMeade.  Thinking I needed to eat something healthy I considered typing "banana" or "apple," but instead punched in the letters for another NuMeade.  Ordinarily I wouldn't start drinking until evening, but there was nothing ordinary about the life I'd been leading of late.

Back in the living room I sat in the leather chair and started on my second drink.  I slipped the iWear on, gave the "TOC" command, and examined all the titles of the books written by Felicia Monk.  Some of them were Daddy's Little Vixen, Lying Your Way to Freedom, and How to Marry Your Invisible Lover.
The alcoholic beverage had kicked in fast, nearly sending me into an instant stupor before I noticed that among Felicia’s books was one written by her father, Zen:  Thinking Inside the Box:  An Inspector Mime Mystery by I. Box.  Though I could feel myself slipping over the steeply-sloping precipice to peaceful afternoon-sleep, I tried to force myself to stay awake.

I gave the "open" command to the iWear and read this:

"They caught him in the Chisos Mountains in the old Big Bend National Park, one of the few remote places left in these United States.  He'd been on the run for several years, popping back and forth across the narrow ribbon of Rio Grande near Boquillas, Mexico.  But he was tired, his back was killing him, and he was hanging out a lot in the mountains near the South Rim grubbing for food, relieving himself in an old solar compost toilet the Forest Service had put in over a decade ago, and just generally wishing he could will himself to die before they came for him.

They came in the middle of the night while he was sound asleep in his tent.  At first he thought it was one of the black bears that had migrated across the river from the Sierra del Carmen Mountains, but when he heard whispering he knew his time had come.  It was a SWAT team from the BookForce, and they handcuffed him, confiscated his life savings of $50,000, and marched him down the trail right then and there, the lead marshall lighting the way with the torch strapped to his forehead."

I quickly removed the iWear and tried to understand what I had just read.  Was Zen Monk plagiarizing my book, Utomepia? I put the glasses back on and returned to the page that gave the date of publication; according to that page his book had been published several years earlier.  Might he have changed the dates for nefarious purposes?

Or, perhaps, in some bizarre reality beyond my comprehension I was nothing more than a character in a book he'd already written.  The thought was mind-boggling.  Had "free will" never really existed for me?  Had my entire fate already been predetermined by a master storyteller?

I read voraciously, stopping only to relieve myself in the bathroom and to get a third NuMeade.  The story in Zen's book paralleled mine exactly, detailing my escape from the marshals, my recapture, my incarceration in Paso del Norte, my phenomenal literary success, the movie, my near carnal transgression with Bonnie McRae, my arrest and sentencing to the BookForce, my mission to Copper Canyon, the encounter with Phyllis Mime (Felicia) and her father, Marcel (Zen).

That's where I stopped reading, wondering what lay ahead if I ventured further into the text.  The fear of learning my true fate gave me genuine pause for thought, but I read on, nevertheless.

Inspector Marcel Mime and his daughter, Phyllis, slipped into the rear door of Induma's hut.  She had been waiting for them, and they all huddled together in the living room.  Although they were obviously in a hurry to carry out their diabolical plan, the good inspector seemed more preoccupied with getting some fresh tobacco for his cherrywood pipe.

"Do you have any more of that black shag, Induma," he said.  "I can't think properly without it."

"No," she said, "only a pouch of Schippers Speciaal."

"Let's have a bowl, then," he said, handing her the smoking implement.

He was obviously quite impatient, barely able to contain his agitation as she filled the bowl, packed it with the tamper arm of the pipe tool, and lit it.  He nearly exploded as she took a deep draw on the bit.

 When she handed it to him he crammed it into his mouth, taking several pulls and inhaling deeply of the thick bluish-white smoke.  Releasing a cloud nearly into Phyllis's face he paused just long enough for her to recover her composure.  He reminded himself to ask her later why she was wearing only a skimpy emerald-colored bikini.

To Induma he said, "You invite Rowe over, and Phyllis and I will hide in the Chinese box closet.  When he comes inside the hut give him a NuMeade laced with Toma.  Flirt with him afterwards, then get him onto the bed.  We already know he has an incredible weakness for the flesh."

Stopping at that moment to level a malevolent look at his daughter, he said, "Is that why you're dressed in the swimsuit?"

Before she could respond, he said, "When he conks out we'll cuff him, call the authorities, and put out a news release.  The story will circle the globe in minutes:  'The great Lee Rowe has been captured--yet another notch in the belt of the inimitable Inspector Marcel Mime.'  This time, though, I'll reveal my true identity so the world will know I'm the fabulously-gifted thinker/writer Zen Monk.  I should hear from a representative of the Big6 Cartel within days.  The mind-numbing 10-book deal I'll be offered will set the literary establishment on its ear, proving that only a genuine genius could self-publish his way to fame like this.

I practically ripped the glasses from my face, sitting upright in desperation.  They were going to turn me in; it had been their plan all along.  What could I do to save myself?  How resourceful could I be--especially if I was nothing more than a character in another writer's novel?  But wasn't it true that characters--at least good ones--often developed their own personalities regardless of what their creators originally had in mind for them?  Perhaps I could test the theory, see if I couldn't force the "free-will" issue.

A brilliant idea came to mind.  I immediately jumped up, crossed to the door and stepped out into the space between the guesthut and the main residence.  Finding the back door unlocked I entered Zen's home cautiously, crept silently down a hallway and entered his office.  His McBook Author Series 3 computer was already on, and I had no trouble finding his mail address.  I used it to log on to Ambarguntenpress.glo.  My plan was to get into the file for his book Thinking Inside the Box.  If  I could get in I could revise the text in such a way that I would set myself free.  The only problem was I needed a password to access the file.

Like in a dream the word came to me out of the blue:  "Marceau."  I punched it in, immediately opened the file and went directly to the passage in the chapter I'd just read.  I couldn't believe how easy it was.  Employing a popular motif from fiction of the past I simply changed the nature of the characters.  I made Marcel Mime a vampire, Induma a werewolf, and Phyllis a zombie.  Then I set the inspector and Induma on each other.  Induma killed Mime easily, but not before incurring a coma-inducing bite to the neck.  Then Phyllis went about the process of consuming Induma's brain, unaware that the woman's cerebral cortex had been heavily infected with Clostridium botulinum--the botulism toxin.  Phyllis would be paralyzed within hours.  And for a zombie that meant really dead.

I updated the changes, closed the file, and republished the book.  Finished with my devilishly-ingenious plan to save myself and, at the same time, re-exert my free will, I returned to the guesthut and collpased into the leather chair.

The vibrating of the zPhone in the front pocket of my pants went on for so long I woke with a serious case of stiff pizzle.  Putting the phone to my ear, I said, "Hello?"

"Are you coming?"

Groggy from sleep, I said, "Who is this?"

"It's Indira.  You can come now."

I rang off, putting the phone back into my pocket.  I was in that place between dream and reality, undecided about which was really real.  I stood, extracted the phone again and called up the map she'd given me.  There was a red X on her hut.  Was I really going to do this?  Would I actually go to her?  Was my willpower that weak?  Would I cuckold Zen that way?  Well, technically I couldn't really cuckold him because Indira wasn't his wife.

I closed the door to the guesthut behind me as I went out into the cool, crisp night air.

BocaGrande

Standing outside of Indira's hut I felt rather uncomfortable.  It was because of the new cargo shorts I had ordered on Felicia's clothing computer.  The shorts were too snug in the crotch, and they had entirely too many pockets.  I counted nine before discovering yet another tiny snap-button pocket at the back of my left thigh.  Why would they put it there, I wondered, and was there anybody on the entire face of the globe walking around in these shorts with something in each of those pockets?

Still feeling queasy about the dream from which I'd recently awoken, I slid over to an uncurtained side window and peeped inside, half expecting to see three corpses sprawled in a river of blood on the floor.  There were no bodies.

Just then the side door swung open and Indira appeared on the wooden stoop.  "What are you doing there?" she said.  "Come in."

I followed her inside.

In the living room she gestured for me to sit on the black leather sofa, but when I plopped down and rested my hand on the fabric I realized it was a fake leather product called "Fauxther," a high-quality imitation not quite as pricey as the real thing.

"NuMeade?" she said, gesturing to an unopened pint on the coffee table.

"I'd better not."

"Something to eat?" she said, pointing to a bowl of fruit next to the brew.

I was tempted until I examined the offerings.  There was something deeply unsettling about the way she had arranged a banana over a pair of plums in the center of the bowl.

"No, thank you," I said.

"Very well.  Suit yourself."

I looked around her place, which was beautifully decorated:  tasteful paintings hanging at regularly-spaced intervals on the teak-paneled walls, a chandelier whose dangling gems appeared to be pieces of Matrix opal (probably Fauxpal, I figured), and in the center of the space, beneath a domed portal that undoubtedly let sunlight stream in during daylight hours, a circular garden of tall, graceful plants; but I couldn't tell from here whether the tiny forest was real or fake foliage.

"Nice digs," I said.

"Thank you. Would you like the tour?  The bedroom is quite unique."

"Maybe later."

"So Zen and Felicia are away for several days?"

"I guess they have to pick up supplies."

"I hope they'll be able to get the ingredients for my Chicken Tikka Masala."

"What's that?"

"It's a curry I haven't had for years.  Zen will find the garlic and jalapeño with no problem, but the coriander, cumin and garam masala I'm not so sure."

"Sounds interesting."

"Damn, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it," she said, reaching for the fruit bowl and snatching up the banana.

She peeled it exquisitely slowly, staring hungrily at the meat of the fruit the whole while.

Here it comes, I thought, steeling myself for the upcoming erotic show.  But I watched in disappointment as she twisted off a two-inch section of the pulp and popped it into her mouth.  Drat!  She was one of these women who ate a banana by breaking it off into pieces.

She devoured the fruit, standing quickly to carry the peel into the kitchen for disposal in the mulcherator.  But instead of returning to the living room, she said, "Come, there's somebody I want you to meet."


She held out her right hand as if I was supposed to take it.  And, in fact, when I reached her, she grasped my left hand, walking me to the front door as if I were a little boy.  That was a bad thought to let enter my mind because suddenly I felt as if I were in a mother/child relationship with her.


"Who are we going to meet?" I said.


"We're going to see the man who rules this village:  the chief, the sachem, the cacique, the big-time literary muckety-muck of Taller de Autores."


"What's that?"


"'Taller de Autores'?  It is how this village is called."

"What does it mean?"

 "I'm not sure--I don't speak Spanish well."

She donned a pair of NiteSee glasses and gave me a pair to wear.  She was still clutching my hand as she led me outside, and I felt repulsed by the touch of her clammy palm against mine.  Fortunately we didn't have far to go, just a few hundred yards to the center of Taller de Autores.  We climbed the porch steps to a modest ranch-style hut, and she knocked on the front door.  A moment later we heard a high-pitched male voice call out, "¡Ven!"


We entered and saw--at the far side of the space, standing in front of a cook-top gas range with his back to us--a small, slender man who appeared to be wearing nothing but a shiny green vest over his torso.  His flat, bony posterior was fully exposed, the lower third of each buttock indistinguishable from the top of its skinny thigh.  When he began to turn to greet us I braced myself for a sight I didn't want to behold, but with relief I saw that he was wearing a tan, leather loincloth, the butt strap of which had been invisible from the rear.


"Hola, Indira," he said.


"Hola, Jesus," she said.


She pronounced his name "HeyZeus."


He smiled at me, quickly crossing the floor to close the distance between us.  "And this," he said, "is obviously the infamous Lee Rowe."


We shook hands.  I couldn't help but notice the number of silver rings pierced side-by-side through each of his eyebrows.  And on his head he wore a red bandana tied in the historic pirate fashion.


To Indira he said, "I've just fried up some of the drug we'll be using esta noche."


"Drug?" I said.


"I got a primo batch of Literalis just esta mañana."

"I've never heard of it."

 He smiled big, turned his face slightly upward and got a distant look in his eye as he recalled the words to an ancient poem.


"Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise."

"Coleridge?" I said.

"I'm impressed, Mr. Rowe."

"Opium?"

"Similar."

"Hashish?  Ganja?"


He shook his head, saying,  "Although it does have something of a 'munchies' side effect--the almost insatiable hunger for book-binding glue."


"By why Literalis?"

"Because it probes the logical, linguistic side of the brain, blocking emotional impulses from crossing the
corpus collosum into the rational hemisphere of the cerebral cortex."

"It's been years since I've taken drugs voluntarily."

"No te preocupes, hombre.  Don't worry, man.  It's not like any psychedelic high you may remember, the kind where you feel totally out of control.  Getting stoned on Literalis is the exact opposite.  You are in complete control of your faculties.  Come, you will see."

Indira made a beeline for the living room, and I followed reluctantly.  Jesus made a quick detour to the kitchen, standing before the InstaMeal to give it voice commands:  "Coconut water," he said.  "And ice."  Rejoining us, he removed a huge golden-tinted bong from a low shelf behind his beanbag couch.   The bong had a large circular carburetion port in front of an enormous bowl.  After we were all seated--Jesus on the couch, Indira and I in beanbag recliners--he poured coconut water into the top of the chamber, followed closely by three or four ice cubes.

He then shredded with fingers and thumbs about five mushroom-like fungi that resembled dessicated miniature shrunken heads and stuffed them into the bowl.  Putting his mouth inside the chamber, and putting the index finger of his left hand over the carb hole, he lit the substance with a disposable iGniter, simultaneously inhaling deeply until the Literalis had cherried.  He sucked until the chamber had filled with smoke, then removed his finger from the carb and passed the bong left to Indira.

As she expertly handled the device, sucking milky smoke into the lower lobes of her lungs, I began to feel anxious, as if I were a teenager once again about to take his first hit of Eucalyptaline.  Did my hand shake a little when I reached out to take the bong from her?

I put my lips inside the chamber, plugged the carb hole and inhaled like a newborn baby gasping for his first breath of non-placental oxygen.  Just as I got the smoke down into the lower reaches of my lungs, Jesus exhaled the smoke from his.  I thought I would burst or pass out waiting for Indira to do the same, but after she did I felt it was incumbent upon me to keep the stuff inside a few seconds longer.

After I blew it out and passed the bong back to Jesus, he said, "Bastante  That's plenty.  This is some potent mierda, and we don't want to become pedants."

While he walked over to a wall-sized bookcase filled with ancient tomes I kept waiting to feel the effects of the drug.  Either the stuff wasn't getting to me or it was the subtlest high I'd ever experienced.  Jesus returned with three books so old they were literally disintegrating before our very eyes and handed one each to Indira and me.  He practically threw himself down on the beanbag couch and began eagerly snuffing at his book, smelling the front and back hard covers and inhaling, all along the spine of the volume, like a bloodhound catching a scent.  I watched in horrified fascination as Indira did the same.

Not to seem out of place or to make them uncomfortable I began to smell my tome, too, and was greeted by the prototypical odor of "old book"--ancient grasses and acids and an underlying vanilla vapor overridden by a powerful mustiness--that was a mnemonic aroma carrying me back to my first visit to the Library of Congress Museum in Washington D.C.  But that was the extent of my high.

Jesus and Indira, on the other hand, had begun to gnaw at the bindings of their books, crunching down and chewing on the petrified cardboard, paper and glue as if they were famished cats each feasting on the spine of a half-devoured bird.

When they looked up at me, bits of binding lodged in their teeth, aghast at the absence of voraciousness in me, they grew self-conscious, sheepishly setting their books on the floor.

After exchanging glances with her, Jesus said,  "¡Está bien!  Right.  Let's get started."

"Get started?" I said.  "On what?"

"Didn't Indira tell you?--we're going to workshop your book, Utomepia."

"But why?  I've finished with it."

"Have you?"

"I thought I had."

"Are we ever really finished with anything until we're finished, amigo?  Here are some of my observations.  The book is hugely entertaining, rushing at breakneck speed from one scene to the next.  But, like almost everything in life, the strength is also the weakness.  We have an expression here in Taller de Autores, "La gallina pesa menos después de poner un huevo," which translates roughly into English as "The chicken weighs less after laying an egg."  Do see what I mean?"

"You're saying I laid an egg with Utomepia, and I'm diminished because of it?"

"No, no, caballero, I'm saying the book is the chicken. ¿Entiendes?  Do you understand?"

"Not really."

"Never mind, then.  Let me just spell it out as simple as I can.  The book it's just demasiado stuff happening back-to-back.  Because of that we have no real tension.  It's just a--como se dice--a laugh-a-minute.  There's no real characterization, and the pace is like cardiac fibrillation.  You've got to slow things down, amigo."

Indira said, "Yes, I agree.  It could be so much more.  Take, for example, at the very start when you have the main character taken into custody.  That first chapter is so short; you skip over the opportunity to develop his character.  So when Jesus and I got together early today we wrote a little scene to give an example to you."

"Sí, sí," Jesus said.  "In the holding cell the night before he is sent by van to El Paso, he shares the space with an old man, and they talk.  Indira, give us the copies."

She handed a sheet of paper to him, one to me, and kept the last for herself.  When I examined my page I saw it was typed out like dramatic dialogue.

Jesus said, "You play Lee Rowe.  I'm Uncle Rocky."

"'Uncle Rocky'?"  I said.  "I'm not sure where you're going with this."

"Just humor us," Jesus said.  "You'll see in due time.  Let's try."

"All right."

Uncle Rocky:  What're you in for, young fella?

Lee Rowe:  Refusing to write a book.

Uncle Rocky:  What's the problem--you don't like writing?  You hated English in school?"

Lee Rowe:  Actually, I was very good in English, and I wanted to be a writer after I had Ms. DuMont in eleventh grade.  She would always have us read our essays aloud in class, and it was then I realized the power words have over people.  I could make kids laugh and I could make them cry.

Uncle Rocky:  So what's the deal?  Why not write the book?  Why go to all the trouble of avoiding the unavoidable?

Lee Rowe:  I've got a little problem with authority.  I don't like being told I have to do something.

Uncle Rocky:  Goes back to your old man, huh?  Was he a bastard?  Did he beat you?

Lee Rowe:  He was a drunk.  But I'd rather not talk about him, Mister.  What about you--what are you in for?

Uncle Rocky:  Plagiarism.  They're going to hang me at sunup.

When we finished the brief scene, Jesus and Indira were smiling big, nodding approval at each other over the words they had written.

Jesus was nearly ecstatic.  "Mira, hombre," he said. "¿Ves?  Do you see?"

"Yes."

"¿Qué te parece?  What do you think?"

"Interesting."

"Ah--interesting," Indira said.  "That word."

Jesus said, "What about it?"

She said, "It means 'I'm not really interested, but I don't want to offend.'"

"I see," Jesus said, looking offended now.  He nodded to himself for a good minute, allowing the awkwardness to swell into nearly unbearable proportions before saying to me, "I failed to tell you of another side effect of Literalis."

"Oh?"

"When you crash from the drug tonight the gates of your corpus collosum will be flung open allowing a flood of neural impulses to travel instantaneously from the emotional hemisphere of your brain.  Try not to overreact to the feelings which are magnified from being repressed."

It was his final pronouncement for the evening.  The "workshop" session was over.

Indira said, "I'm properly bushed.  Time to call it a night.  Lee?"

She stood and extended her hand.

I rose, saying to Jesus, "It was a pleasure meeting you.  I'll certainly keep in mind the suggestions you and Indira made--if I ever decide to revise the book."

My comment seemed to brighten his mood, and he jumped up, saying, "If you are interested in more helpful advice and insights on the literary world please check out my blog 'BocaGrande.'  The Uninet address is BocaGrande.glo."

"I'll do that."

Outside, under a full moon that had popped to the horizon like a radiant pearl bobber rising to the surface of a black sea, Indira pulled me close to her.  The lightly fragrant scent of patchouli perfume, a thousand times more potent than the Literalis we'd smoked, immediately had a profound effect on me.  I could feel her hot body against mine, and the image of her meditating earlier in the gauze-like sari came to mind.

"Dear Lee," she said, "I really must give you the tour of my hut.  I have one of those circular vibrating beds with a mirror on the ceiling above.  Surely you must be curious to see it?"

I couldn't say whether emotions would soon be pouring through my corpus collosum, but I was certain that the blood had started coursing through another organ, making my new cargo shorts feel even tighter in the crotch.  I lamented my lack of willpower as I let her drag me toward her place.  I decided that if I ever did rewrite Utomepia I was going to make the MC a more disciplined man.

Facing Facts

I awoke when the gray light of dawn filtered through the spaces between the bamboo-slat curtains in Indira's bedroom and found myself lying flat on my back staring up at the mirror image of myself staring down from the mirror on the ceiling.  Instantly a feeling of disgust welled inside of me, threatening to damper the titillating memory of the tantric dance Indira and I had choreographed last night.  Her mirror image was lying beside mine, the very vision of an Indian goddess in deep, peaceful sleep.  The only thing detracting from the perfect picture was the sight of her opened mouth, a black cave from which a small stream of drool trickled out onto her right cheek.  Left cheek.  I was looking at her reflection in the ceiling mirror.

As I slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb her, I accidentally tripped the switch on the remote control for the mattress vibrator, and quickly fumbled with it trying to find the off position before she was shaken awake.  Fortunately, I succeeded before she stirred.

Thinking it wise to get back to Felicia's guesthut I quickly dressed and exited Indira's home, retracing my steps from last night.  But before I'd traveled even twenty yards, I heard Jesus call from behind:  "Hola, Lee.  Un momento, por favor."

I wasn't anxious to talk to him, but when he caught up, I said, "Buenas dias."

"Ah, hablas español," he said.

"Un poquito."

I was happy to see he wasn't wearing his outfit from yesterday.  Instead, he was dressed for business, a bone-white Newhru jacket over shiny, polar-bear-skin trousers, and Gray Wolf leather boots.

Walking with me toward Felica's place, he said, "Mira, Lee, it's none of my business what you and Indira did last night--after all, you're both adults--but I must tell you, hombre, that Zen Monk is a fiercely jealous man, and those three keep no secrets from each other.  So you can assume that not long after their return Zen and his daughter will find out what you've been up to.  It's something you should know in considering your next move."

"I appreciate you telling me that, Jesus, but I'm not really certain what my next move should be.  If I head back to Creel I'm likely to get nabbed by BookForce marshals.  And if I try to make it through the forest on my own I just might run into a gang of bandidos in the mountains."

"With all due respect, Lee," he said, "I think the proper term is 'band' of bandidos, not 'gang' as you have suggested."

"Whatever.  You get my point."

"Oh, por cierto.  For sure.  It's just I think it would be a buen idea if you hightailed it out of here."

"Good idea, perhaps, but how?"

"I think I have a good solution for you," he said.  "Get your things together and come to my place.  I will show you a way out."

I considered what he said for only a moment before agreeing.

While I packed my meager belongings into a spare rucksack--a few Jungle Rat shirts, two pair of l'Eagle briefs, a spare pair of cargo shorts (all ordered from Felicia's clothes computer)--I understood how foolish it would be for me to linger.  Felicia would be crazy jealous of my night with Indira, and Zen would be enraged.  The two women would probably become instant antagonists, and I would be caught in the middle.  Eventually the wrath of all three individuals would be directed at me.

As I quickly headed for Jesus's hut I thought about Felicia.  She was a sweet kid who honestly cared for me.  But I could never saddle myself to a woman who snored like that.  And Indira--undoubtedly the most beautiful woman I'd ever met--was just too intense.  And how long would it take for me to learn to hate her--especially her accent?  How many times could I listen to her giving tech assistance to clueless computer customers in English that bordered on linguistic gibberish?  No, it was best for me to get out, and to get out now.

Jesus was waiting for me outside his place, and when I got there he took me around to the rear where there was a huge hut with hangar-like doors.  He gestured for me to help him, and together we slid the doors apart.  Inside was an antique helicopter that looked as if it had been sitting for decades.

When my jaw dropped at the sight of it, Jesus said, "Mira, amigo, your way out."

"I can't fly a helicopter."

"No te preocupes.  Not to worry, friend.  I am an expert pilot.  I'm heading for the City of the Angels this morning, but I can take you as far as Tucson."

"Tucson?  Why Tucson?"

"I'll explain on the way," he said.  "What do you say--esta listo para salir?  Ready to go?"

"When's the last time you had this thing in the air?"

"It's been a while, but she's a true bird.  Una paloma blanca."

He called it a "white dove," but the color of the fuselage was a badly-faded camo.

Mexican jumping beans were doing somersaults in my stomach when I said, "Let's do it."

After we busted our asses rolling the damned thing out of the hangar hut, we climbed inside, throwing our luggage in back. The way Jesus sat in the pilot's seat looking around at the controls as if re-familiarizing himself with them made me nervous.  Then he took a yellowed paper note out of a pocket in the console and began reading over it.  Touching a control to his left, he mumbled, "The collective.  The throttle."  Fondling the stick between his legs, he said, "The cyclic."  Then looking down over the top edge of the note to where his feet rested on two floor pedals, he said, "Rudder."

I found all of this so deeply disconcerting, I said, "Jesus Christ, Jesus, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"It's been awhile, amigo, but don't fret.  I'll have us on our way in no time."

He depressed a button and the rotor blade began to turn overhead.  The old turbine engine sputtered a few times before the blade started rotating faster.  He was obviously opening the throttle.  But he wore a perplexed look on his face, saying in a whisper that was barely audible, "Is it fifteen hundred, two thousand, or twenty-five hundred?"

"What?"

"Que?"

"Is what fifteen hundred, two thousand, or twenty-five hundred."

"Oh--the RPM needed to get us off the ground."

I was about to jump out of the damned machine when it began hesitantly tilting into the air.

Jesus wore a huge smile.  "I knew it would all come back to me," he said.

I pushed my feet into the floorboard as if I were trying to keep my feet on the ground, but the damned flying machine just kept rising higher and higher.  As I looked down through the passenger door I saw her--Indira standing beside her hut, which appeared to be the size of a large matchbox, waving wildly at us.

Jesus saw her, too, and he said, "She probably wants to go with you."

That simple statement made me feel so sad.  There was still so much I had to learn from her.  She had talked about "enlightenment," and I never had the chance to ask if she meant the kind espoused by the ancient seer Confucius, that is, gradual accumulation of insights until the individual experienced a sudden, and lasting, epiphany; or did she refer to the kind of enlightenment the sage Lao Tzu spoke about, a series of cyclic enlightenments that grew more profound over time.

To Jesus, I said, "I'm a real cad."

"Cad?"

"Cabrón."

"Ah--asshole," he said.  "Don't sweat it, amigo, you're doing the right thing.  She and Zen are made for each other."

"But what about Felicia?  I feel like a real heel leaving her like this."

"Heel?"

"Bastard."

"Ah--hijo de perra."

"No," I said, "not 'son of bitch.'  A bastard."

"Eh.  Six of one, half a dozen of another."

I watched as the figure of Indira shrunk to ant-sized proportions before Jesus leveled the helicopter.  When he started the flying machine forward the fuselage shuddered violently, making me think we were going down.

Jesus laughed at my anxiety.  "Chill out, hombre, that happens every time," he said.  "It's called ETL--but for the life of me I can't remember what the letters stand for."

I said, "Which route do we take to Tucson."

"North along the spine of the Sierra Madre Occidental," he said.  "We'll be there in two-and-one-half hours, God willing."

There wasn't one thing Jesus had said or done so far that gave me any confidence in his ability to get us to our destination in one piece.  Tucson.  Why were we going to Tucson, a city where I'd spent eight years of my life as a younger man.

When I asked him about it, Jesus said, "I have a friend there who may be able to help you."  He began searching through the pockets of his Newhru jacket, taking his hands off of the joystick and lifting his feet off the foot pedals, the latter movement causing the helicopter to begin to spin.  Recognizing his distraction he quickly put his feet back in place, stopping the rotation.

"Maldita sea," he said, "where'd I put that damned card?'

As soon as he said that he found it in the outside breast pocket of his jacket.  Looking at the card momentarily he passed it to me.

It was a professional card for the Sonora Autonomous University, Department of English and Foreign Languages.  The name jumped out at me at once:  Professor Lenora Hedge, Creative Writing Director, MFARTS.  When I'd last seen her she'd still been Lenora Hedge-Rowe.  #1.

"Number One," I said.

Jesus said, "¿Perdón?"

"My first wife."

"You're kidding?"

"Look at my face, Jesus.  Do I look like I'm kidding?"

He looked at me, saying, "You still look like you're shitting yourself about this flight, hombre."

"Yeah--well now I've got two things to shit myself about."

"It wasn't an amiable divorce, I take it?"

"Did you talk to her about me?"

"Por cierto.  Sure I did."

"And you mentioned my name?"

"Sí, por supuesto.  Of course I did."

"And what did she say?"

"She said she knows you.  She didn't mention you two had been hitched."

We flew in silence after that, and for a while I just stared out at the spectacular mountains passing below us, marveling at the beauty of this area which had been wrested from Mexico years earlier.  This was only the second time I'd flown in a helicopter, the first being when I had been highlined off a U.S. guided-missile hydrofoil on the gunline in Lake Superior during the Canadian-American War.

Then my mind rolled back to #1.  She had risen like a rocket in academe to become the director of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at SAU, a program that had once been described as "the epicenter of cutting-edge fiction in the Western Hemisphere."  The last I'd heard of her she was about to marry the nenowned ePistomologist Keanu Fundt.  I saw from her card that she'd apparently opted out of yet another hyphenated last name.


As we approached Tucson from the east, banking south of the Rincon Mountains, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  The city I had lived in years ago was now a massive, sprawling metroplex that had spilled out of its valley, sloshing over the Santa Catalina Mountains to the north and washing all the way to the Santa Ritas to the south.  More amazing still was the complete absence of the magnificent saguaro forests for which the area had been famous.

"Where are all the saguaros?" I said.

Jesus said, "Ah--a sad reality, mi amigo.  About a decade ago it was discovered that the pulp of the giant cactus contained a substance that could be made into an aphrodisiac.  As soon as the news got out the corporations hired cactusjacks to cut them all down.  An industry sprung up to provide the new sex-enhancing drug to consumers around the world, a drug dubbed Saguarodisiac, which later jokingly became known as Soredicksiac because users could not refrain from constant intercourse.  People stopped using the drug after a terrible incident in Japan where thousands of people screwed themselves to death on the island of Honshu.  Sadly, by then, all the saguaros were gone, and nobody bothered trying to grow more."

I said, "And what about the national park--Saguaro East and West--I read a few years back that they were in jeopardy."

"They are no more," Jesus said.  "During the TakeBackOurCountry movement the land-grabbers homesteaded the park, made a fortune selling the saguaros, then sold off the land to some fricking hydraulic fracking company, and you can guess the rest of the story."

By then he had flown around the eastern edge of the Catalinas, saying he was headed for a spot north of Oracle to set the helicopter down.  "It's the only place I can refuel," he said.

When we came in for the landing--in what looked to be an old corral on an abandoned ranch--a huge dust devil suddenly blew up, a sandy vortex of tumbleweeds and ancient trash that spun around like a small twister.  The flying machine rocked back and forth as Jesus tried to put it down, and I could see him struggling with the controls.  Perhaps thinking that we'd already touched ground when we were still about five feet in the air he cut power, and we thudded down hard on the landing skids.

"Ay, chingada!" Jesus said.  "Man, I got to fly this thing more often."

There was absolutely nobody around when we stepped out of the helicopter, and as I strapped the rucksack onto my back I was thinking that from here I could make my way up the north face of the Catalinas, disappear into the forest near the resort community of Summerhaven, take my time figuring out what to do.  I was just about to thank Jesus for the lift when we heard a vehicle coming around the front of the property.  A second later a jet black Thunderbird rolled to a stop ten feet away.

"The guys with the fuel?" I said to him.

"No, hombre," he said, "that would be Lenora."