19. The Ithaca Epilogue ( Take one and Take two)

 

19.  The Ithaca Epilogue  - take one

 

 

“Somedays it seems like there is someone always asking questions. Somedays it seems as though all this is one big test that is graded with a pass or fail grade. Somedays the calculated coincidence of two fast fading stars journeying on a parallel path across the universe is not as impossible as once conjectured. Somedays it feels as though the layers of the experiences of existence can be peeled away to discover that the great mystery is no mystery at all. Somedays the light at the end of the tunnel that was growing brighter and bigger is wisped away like some cruel supernatural tease. Somedays it can be considered a little self-centered and presumptuous  to go to bed requesting that your lover deliver breakfast in bed the next morning. Somedays it is better to leave the plans and maps behind and venture out with no expectations.  Somedays it is the intimacy of a true companion is all that is needed.”

 

Jake was puzzled again as he had no idea, which is not an unusual state, how these words found themselves in his journal. This wasn’t the time for him to put on his investigative mask. The Timex on the weather worn leather band was stuck on two forty seven . He had no idea what time it really was. Midnight just seemed minutes ago. Launching out on his leg of his journey seemed just hours old. Everything was moving faster. The Canadian’s siren song whipped him round and round and he couldn’t get off.

 

Sundance appeared in the doorway with a bright glow shinning from behind him making his features dark, mysterious and almost holy.

 

“Both Paul and Wolfe were wrong you know, you can go home, you just can’t go back ! Nothing good comes from Ithaca. “

 

Jake half listening, as he thought Sundance was still stoned or was totally beguiled by Athena’s daughter , scrambled along the floor to grab the pack of cigarettes under the table waiting to be devoured. Lighting one he sat up saying

 

“Since Salinger has decided to be an iconoclastic ascetic and Kerouac is on the road somewhere lost , we are we still going to Walden Pond right? And if you like, after we visit there we can take you back to Fairfield and I can get on with what I am supposed to get on with. Whatever that is!”

 

Sundance slipped on his trousers half warbling in a soft Dylanesque voice, as he was sensitive to the fact Diana and Isabella remained in dreamland,

 

“Well if the Holy Ghost really wants us to get to Henry David’s cabin then I guess we gotta go. Can’t not listen to the voice of God can we?”

 

Jake played along

 

“Do we know how to get there or are we going to wait until we both get spiritually enlightened?”

 

“We can sit under a tree and breathe slowly or grab a map out of your glove compartment. Whatever you think is easier or more practical.”

 

Jake jabbed back

 

“Maybe just grab your Ignatian prayer book. It does have a section on Spiritual Direction doesn’t it, that includes directions in Massachusetts too right? Don’t want to go down the wrong path or head in the wrong direction , do we ?”

 

They both laughed a little louder than they expected as Sundance concluded

 

“It’s all too late to worry about that now.”

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

 

 

19.  The Ithaca Epilogue   -  take two

 

 

 

 

“Somedays it seems like there is someone always asking questions. Somedays it seems as though all this is one big test that is graded with a pass or fail grade. Somedays the calculated coincidence of two fast fading stars journeying on a parallel path across the universe is not as impossible as once conjectured. Somedays it feels as though the layers of the experiences of existence can be peeled away to discover that the great mystery is no mystery at all. Somedays the light at the end of the tunnel that was growing brighter and bigger is wisped away like some cruel supernatural tease. Somedays it can be considered a little self-centered and presumptuous to go to bed requesting that your lover deliver breakfast in bed the next morning. Somedays it is better to leave the plans and maps behind and venture out with no expectations.  Somedays it is the intimacy of a true companion is all that is needed.”

 

Jake looking at his open journal in front of his half waked eyes was puzzled again as he had no idea, which is not an unusual state, how these words found themselves in his journal. This wasn’t the time for him to put on his investigative mask. The Timex on the weather worn leather band was stuck on two forty seven . He had no idea what time it really was. Midnight just seemed minutes ago. Launching out on his leg of his journey seemed just hours old. Everything was moving faster. The Canadian’s siren song carouseled around him and he couldn’t get off.

 

Jake scrambled along the floor to grab the pack of cigarettes under the table waiting to be devoured. Lighting one he sat up saying

 

“Since Salinger has decided to be an iconoclastic ascetic and Kerouac is on the road somewhere lost , we are we still going to Walden Pond right? And if you like, after we visit there we can take you back to Fairfield and I can get on with what I am supposed to get on with. Whatever that is!”

 

Sundance appeared in the doorway with a bright glow shinning from behind him making his features dark, mysterious and almost holy.

 

“Both Paul and Wolfe were wrong you know, you can go home, you just can’t go back ! Nothing good comes from Ithaca. So if the Holy Ghost really wants us to get to Henry David’s cabin then I guess we gotta go. Can’t not listen to the voice of God can we?”

 

Jake played along

 

“Do we know how to get there or are we going to wait until we both get spiritually enlightened?”

 

“We can sit under a tree and breathe slowly or grab a map out of your glove compartment. Whatever you think is easier or more practical.”

 

Jake jabbed back

 

“Maybe just grab your Ignatian prayer book. It does have a section on Spiritual Direction doesn’t it, that includes directions in Massachusetts too right? Don’t want to go down the wrong path or head in the wrong direction ,do we ?”

 

They both laughed a little louder than they expected as Sundance concluded

 

“It’s all too late to worry about that now.”

 

The river from a secret unknown mountain spring flowed feverishly finding her way eventually to Diana’s kitchen sink. After filling the kitchen sink with ice and cold water Jake buried his head into the water waking himself

 

“Whewee! Wow! Ok , now I am ready!”

 

Isabella half dazed, half confused , half sat up on the couch as Sundance handed her a cup of coffee from the fresh pot he just made.

 

“So you guys off somewhere or what?”

 

Diana strolled out from her bedroom draped in the bed cover showing her mostly naked right leg up to the uppermost part of her thigh. Picking up her foot and leg planting it in Sundance’s lap

 

“So lover boy, …”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Sweet baby, do you really want to leave this treat?”

 

Sundance pulled Diana close to his mouth and he whispered rather than kiss her while Jake preoccupied himself with packing what few things he had into his old gym bag. Diana then shoved Sundance away

 

“ Well, you better be back soon or call or write or something!”

 

Sundance winked over at Jake and smirked

 

“I am sure I will , hon.”

 

Jake grabbing Isabella with one of those off to war or some great adventure farewell hug-kisses

 

“ Knock ‘em dead on your exams, sweetheart . “

 

Getting more dramatic he

 

“As my hero Bogey said to Bergman said ‘The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.’ I will call you when Sundance and I find a  safe harbor. Until then , keep the faith… te’ amo mi amore’.”

 

Diana and Isabella stood at Diana’s front door as the two boys scrambled into the worn out Chrysler watching it speed off into the early morning fog. Diana turned to Isabella and said

 

“Now that was a strange night. I don’t even know  what Sundance’s real name! Who is he anyway? Maybe they were the Lone Stranger and his native companion?”

 

Isabella smiled and returned to the kitchen to warm up her coffee.

 

As Jake tried to impress the girls by laying some rubber on the road, the tires just spun uncontrollably burning rubber smoke until they finally got traction. Sundance laughed lighting a smoke of his own

 

“Ya know that Diana wasn’t a half bad . You know, a really nice lady. I gotta get her number from Isabella and you gotta tell me her last name!”

 

Time moves faster when one is in a speeding car. In almost no time at all Jake and Sundance were pulling up to the entrance of the Massachusetts State Park at Walden Pond only to see a sign on the barrier that blocked the entrance way.

 

“Closed for Repairs”

 

Jake screeched out his indignation

 

“Can you believe it?! We came all this way and look what happens! This is unbelievable ! They are repairing nature. What , God’s work isn’t good enough?!”

 

Sundance popped a can of warm beer handing it to Jake trying to console him saying

 

“Well, we didn’t come up here just for this did we? Besides how many folks have been here ? This place has probably been destroyed with garbage, thievery and the like by all the tourists over the years.”

 

Jake laughed in a snide way

 

“That’s what God said about earth and he hasn’t closed this yet. But I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”

 

Sometimes the skies clear and the wind shifts and only the astute focused navigator readily notices and takes advantage. Sometimes the sailing is perfect and the vessels course is unabated and even novice sailors cruise along without any imminent danger. Even Poseidon  smiles sometimes.

 

Sundance snored all the way from the gates of Walden to the gates  of Fairfield University . One fading burned out cigarette lighting the next and again and again,  Jake chain smoked the whole trip and filled his head with questions  around the pro’s and cons of heading back to Boston . Maybe , he meandered, that he should just keep driving for the next few days until he reached the Big Sur in California. Then Black Beauty stopped intuitively at the entrance way of Fairfield and Jake gave a big shove at Sundance waking him . Sundance just put out his right hand to clasp Jake’s as he grabbed his bag looking straight into Jake’s half sleep-filled eyes

 

“Ok, this time it was a short phase of our own tertianship formation. This summer we head to Dublin or maybe Paris or both. Ad magestri Dei gloriam! ”

 

Jake leaned forward half out the passenger side where Sundance had escaped to see if he heard Sundance clearly

 

“What? Dublin, Paris ? When? How? “

 

Within two blinks of an eye Sundance had become a fast fading shadow amidst the pedestrian traffic of students rushing here and and there over the university quad in between classes.

 

Jake shouted as if Sundance could still hear him

 

“And pax amicus .”

 

The Black Beauty cruised off into the oncoming red-coated sunset that slowly and carefully bathed the Tappan Zee Bridge. A fear burned within Jake that the unpredictable erratic wind gusts of change and his speed would provide evidence that Burnouli’s theorem works on cars as much as it does sails, airplane wings and souls alike. His concern rose as he felt that somehow he would soon take flight over the river.  Would he fly or would he make a splash that would make the front pages of some local non-read non-important community weekly newsrag ?

 

The story found on page seventeen lower left next to the advertisement for the schedule of masses at St. Francis Xavier’s church in Somwheretown , New York would read

 

“ Another car takes off from Tappan Zee and makes unnoticed small splash in Hudson River. No body or driver found.

 

‘ Somebody is going to pay for this’ said Police Chief . He added ‘ People don’t realize how expensive it is to retrieve these cars from the river. Ever since these hippie types started in with those demonstrations and  drugs an all , we get about one of these incidents a week and we never have found a body. ‘

 

The police have stated that The Wall Street banker who’s body was found near the shores of Tarrytown a month ago is said to be a different case. Authorities found his car on the bridge and it is suspected that he stood on the outer railing when he shot himself in the head.”

 

Before Jake could continue his another thought in his mindless meanderings and second guess himself once more… a sound off in the distance rises. It is his mother’s voice slipping gently but firmly and louder and louder into his space and time ,

 

“Jake! Jake! Wake up! You need to get on the road!”

 

He rubbed his eyes and sees that his is lying in a sweat soaked bed and shakes his head like a bewildered just birthed puppy. Whimpering

 

“What …. day is this?

 

She shook his bed hoping it that the shaking would rile his spirit.

 

“Time just doesn’t stand still until you think are ready, you know!””

 

Jake mumbled a protesting question

 

“What time is it?”

 

His mother now just at the just about boiling point of complete loving exasperation

 

“You need get going! Now! You are going to be late!”

 

Jake slowly pulled the blanket to his chin asking

 

“Late? When? Where am I going?”

 

18. Eudora’s Knight

The rhythm of the rain reminds the roaming reminiscing romantic that the tree top fog had dissipated. Some other pilgrim may notice the change in weather. Clouds coast along the night sky, mysterious and emancipating simultaneously. Sometimes some wet wanderers are not aware how or why their cigarettes remain lighted in the rain. While others still unknowingly puff away at rain soaked butts, unlit , as they gradually fall apart. The river runs rapidly and the banks can wash away any indication of the previous presence of once welcomed wrestling lovers and nested geese. The great space that once allowed vessels of various sizes flow freely under the bridge to nowhere can be narrowed by the rising waters only permitting the passage of a lonely log drifting aimlessly downstream.

 

Sundance dashing from the bedroom to the fridge for two more beers for himself and his momentary lover asked Isabella

 

“Where’s Jake?”

 

“Oh, he went out for one of his famous walks in the rain” she said annoyingly looking up from her textbook.

 

Sundance grabbed a third bottle of beer and squeezed himself onto the couch where Isabella lay. Making sure the bedroom blanket adequately covered his lower half of his body he gifted the third beer to Isabella.

 

“To Jake!”

 

She raised her bottle half-heartedly in response.

 

“I guess.”

 

Sundance continued,

 

“Ya know I remember one night last fall when it was pouring so hard my family frantically scrambled to look for Noah’s boat design in the bible when all of a sudden there was a ring at the door bell. There stood a drenched worn down pilgrim who had just walked seven or eight miles during that precursor to the probable great last flood. He looked like a pathetic puppy abandoned along some unmarked county road in the middle of Nowhere Ville, New Jersey. And, yet…I couldn’t believe it …and yet…there he stood with his big silly grin standing in the doorway as my mother answered the door and he says ‘Hi, Mrs. Cassidy is Sundance home?’ Good ole vagabond soaked Jake standing there just as if it were a same as any other night.

 

My mother looked around and didn’t see his car and as she invited him in she inquired ‘ where’s your car? Did someone drop you off?’

 

He wiped his feet and responded

 

‘No ma’m. I walked.’

 

My mother called out for me and demanded that I get him some dry clothes while she made some fresh hot chocolate. Though I apologized for my mother Jake was unusually grateful. My younger brother thought Jake was cool and my sister just said ‘weird’ and both left us alone in my room. He didn’t say much of anything about why he was there, something about butting heads with his father again. I tried to change the subject and soothe him by playing the song ‘Yesterday’ for him. I was proud that I had just figured out all the chords. I am not sure but I think I saw his eyes well up as I played my rendition of the song.”

 

Isabella listening intently now touched Sundance’s hand

 

“ I know about that night. “ she said and continued

 

“Jake did tell me about that evening was how welcoming and hospitable you and your family were. I know he is still grateful for your friendship. But at the same time that’s Jake. It seems like he is drawn to walking alone in the rain almost as if there are voices calling he can’t resist.”

 

Sundance took a swig of his brew as he heard Diana’s voice call from the bedroom

 

“Where’s that beer sweetie?”

 

“Well, duty calls and I am here to serve you know. He’ll be ok. He always is isn’t he?”

 

Isabella smiled

 

“Yeh , I am not worried. Now go live up to your duty and I can get back to my studying.”

 

Isabella was quick to get lost again in her studying and the next time she looked up from her books three hours had passsed since Jake had made his departure. Coincidentally, as she checked her watch again to see if the time was really what she thought it was as she heard the front door open slowly. Jake was not too effective in being inconspicuous squishing his way across the parquet floors leaving big duck like wet footprints.

 

He saw Isabella awake on the couch

 

“Hey, you ok?”

 

Isabella smirked

 

“I think the question is ‘Are you ok?”

 

“Yeh, just a little wet. I need a drink. You got any smokes?”

 

Sometimes certain exchanges are better off not to pursue or to continue the path down a certain line of questioning. Sometimes silence is the best course of action. She was totally aware that if Jake wanted to talk about where he had been and so on he would have presented himself at her feet immediately upon passing through the portals of Diana’s castle giving full report of his short pilgrimage with accompanying eight and a half by eleven black and white glossies if he could.

 

He grabbed a beer, found a communal cigarette pack on the kitchen table and chugged the bottle and smoked a butt all in what seemed to be one big inhale.

 

Isabella couldn’t resist and succumbed to her nature

 

“Are you sure you are ok?”

 

“I think me and Sundance need to head up to Walden Pond tomorrow and spend some time there before I head back home.”

 

“Ok. I wasn’t really expecting you guys to be here in the first place. You talk to Sundance about this? “

 

Isabella sat up and continued

 

“This is kind of abrupt isn’t it? Anything happen out there?”

Jake slowly began to lie down on his back finishing off his cigarette.

 

“ I don’t know. It’s weird ya know. There I was walking along the Charles River when I saw this dark figure standing on the outside of the railing on the bridge that crossed the river. I went up to this person and it was a girl. Actually she looked a lot what I imagine my sister would have looked like if she had lived. So I asked this girl if she was ok. She mumbled something of how her fiancé’ was MIA in Vietnam and how no one could give her good answer or any hope. I think she was crying. I really couldn’t tell with all that rain. When I asked she said her name was Jen and I reached out to help her back to the walkway side of the bridge. Without any discussion we both just strolled together, just talking about general stuff: weather, Boston  …you know. I saw a coffee shop still open and asked her if she would like a cup. We went in and just like that this girl just went on an on talking for a couple of hours about nothing specific, just talking bout stuff. I just kept pouring coffee trying to keep awake and listening while she went on about this and that. When we walked out the coffee shop she squeezed my hand, said ‘your sweet’ and gave me a quick peck on my cheek. She turned left and walking up a hill disappeared from view and I came back here. I have no idea who she was, where I was, how I got there or how I got back. It’s just all very strange, ya know. I felt like I should have a catcher’s mitt or something. “

 

Isabella joined the speculation

 

“Maybe this incidental encounter is one of those mystical planned coincidences as to why you came up here with Sundance in the first place. Maybe that’s why you ended up at Diana’s. Maybe that’s why you felt called to go out and walk in the rain. Maybe you were meant to meet that girl and in some way save her. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind’s blowing, so let it be.”

 

She was teasing him but Jake took everything she said seriously, as always. Jake bent his head rubbing his eyes and answered

 

“Yeh , but maybe it was all a dream. ”

 

“Well don’t over-think or over-analyze it like some populist pundit philosopher or fledgling English professor! You might hurt yourself.“

 

Isabella thought twice about her curt remark and then leaned over to the floor where Jake was lying down and whispered in that sweet seducing soft voice to Jake

 

“I am sure you were helpful to that girl .You do give good ear, Jake.”

 

“Wha?”

 

“Jake, you must be tired. Let it be.  Get some sleep and maybe you are right …maybe you need to just head home tomorrow.”

 

Jake was almost completely asleep on the floor by the time Isabella could get back to the couch. She picked up her books and muttered

 

“Ah, just another night in paradise.”

17. Prometheus Unwound

Some distant wind of unknown origin carefully relieved an acorn from her last thread of attachment falling to an undiscovered patch of earth and tumbles to the banks of a stream that carries her away by the rising rain-filled waters easing into a great mountain river flowing aimfully to a great distant sea. She carefully secures herself in post flood plain. A roving robin either had keen eyes or randomly noticed her in his bombsights and made a swift dive to grab her up higher and higher where he is pursued by the great hunting hawk. More dives and turns the robin loses the acorn floating spiraling downward into some undiscovered landscape.  The acorn transforms in time and becomes home providing Frostian branches for some farmer’s son’ imagination until that same farmer requires fuel for the hearth to ward off the frigid winter that seems to have frozen everything. The gods had different plans with that acorn’s companions who were also shaken free by that same wayward wind. A few were gathered by hungry squirrels who anticipated a rough winter while others were loosed into the stream that lead to the river that emptied to the sea and were never heard from again.

 

The wind blew in from north, south and west all at once on one unusual day in the spring of 1966.  Things would not be the same. Jake would never forget that time, that year when he was shaken free. Completing anxious research for his tryout for the high school debating team he came across a number different reports of Vietnamese Buddhist monks self immolating in protest of the war in their country. The black and white photo on the cover of some national magazine of a monk sitting and burning in furious flames was an image that burned like a branding iron on Jake’s heart. He could almost feel the heat himself. He vaguely recalled how Jesus was quoted as saying something like “the greatest love is to give up one’s for his friend” and he had heard of heroic acts of soldiers and firemen who sacrificed their lives to save another. But, this was the first time where he had read of and seen individuals who would cover themselves in gasoline sacrificing themselves in a protest against war and as an act of desperate love to implore others that peace and love were the only ways to exist in this world. 

 

In one of those random but not so random acts Father Adolph had assigned Jake to lead the “anti war” team and Sundance the “pro-war “ team in their Oxford style debate. After the debate Sundance grabbed Jake by the arm into the hallway

 

“What the fuck was that all about? Since when did you get so compassionate about pacificism? You don’t care that much about anything except beer, music and Mary Lou!!!”

 

Mary Lou had Jake preoccupied a lot lately.

 

“ And. And, how dare you call me Mr. Cassidy, you smug bastard!”

 

Jake didn’t feel like he wanted or needed to explain anything about what he had learned in his research readings from famous catholic writers like Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan.

 

“The Wanderers will think I am weird if they knew what I was reading.”

 

His quasi-insecurity restricted him from mentioning anything about how the picture of the burning monk or the stories of these monks had shook his core. He even tried to deny and ignore his own feelings.

 

Earlier that week Sundance had casually mentioned that he would be the captain of the “pro-war team “ in the debate team tryouts Jake’s spirit became fired up… with a blend of excitement and anxiety. He knew Jake could never win. His friend, Sundance, diligent, bright, gifted and articulate. Jake’s mouth usually loose and fast would be tested. He accepted the challenge as a personal task to see if he could at least hold his own in a structured debate against his long time friend. Jake was uncomfortable with structures of any kind. Though after the tryouts his stomach still churned upside down and inside out in the end he felt he didn’t do half badly in the war of wits…. and maybe that upset Sundance just a little. Father Adolph refused to share the score by the other judges, one who was a teacher who had mentored Jake just a little in preparation for the event.

 

Al and Billy just happened to pass Sundance and Jake in the hall after the verbal skirmish and in unison each raised their two fingers on one hand in a “V” - saying

 

“Peace.”

 

Jake gave that almost tight lipped half-smile

 

“Peace to you too”

 

Sundance just shook his head and walked away and Jake darted quickly into the boys room before jumping into Black Beauty to find Mary Lou.

 

So in the stepping up to the Cambridge brownstone duplex door Jake didn’t realize that this arriving at Diana’s place years after that debate that he would be investigating what happened to him after the day the wind shook him free.

 

“ Oh my god. Jake, it is so good to see you. Who is this handsome fellow you brought over for me? Is he a gift?”

 

That was Diana for you.

 

“Yeh , he’s a gift alright.”

 

The fair-skinned Sundance wasn’t aware how much he blushed.

He pretended not to hear a word of their exchange.

 

“Pleased to meet you. Jake has said so many nice things about you.”

 

Sundance laughed….

 

“Of course he has. He knows I would kill him if he said anything different.”

 

Diana quipped

 

“Now that’s what I call a friendship.”

 

Diana had trained herself to be the perfect hostess. It was a goal of sorts. She had a specific goal in attending Harvard Law School. She had no intention to follow in the footsteps of famous female jurists but rather to meet some US Senator to be. She would never marry a congressman or lobbyist.

 

“God forbid!”

 

Her desire was to secure a place within the DC beltway and be that perfect hostess entertaining international dignitaries while holding her own in political and legal conversations.

 

After the boys settled down and cracked open the beer and the Jack Daniels Diana ran off to the bedroom and returned with a medium football sized ball of aluminum foil.

 

“Come here guys”

 

They sat in a circle on her faux Chinese rug as she religiously ceremoniously carefully folded back the sides of the ball to expose the inner communal gift.

 

“Holy shit! Is that all pure grass?”

 

Sundance murmured.

 

Diana retrieved an ole burned lipstick tainted corncob pipe and added

 

“And it is the best appetizer to accompany Jack.”

 

For a moment Jake was a little skittish as he thought she meant him but she explained she was speaking about the bourbon not him. Their contemplative atmosphere of focused solitudinal silence was disrupted only slightly with the ringing of her doorbell.

 

“Oh that’s probably Isabella. I said she could study hear if she wanted.”

 

Jake choked on the smoke that filled his mouth and lungs exploding out the smoke and sputum around the room and grabbed the Jack out of Sundance’s hand taking an enormous priest-guzzling gulp.

 

“Really? Isabella’s hear, now?”

 

He jumped like a worried half trained puppy to get the door and kissed Isabella as she squeezed by him through the doorway as she said

 

“You know I have to study and no funny business!”

 

“What? Well, I have to work on my petition to the draft board to approved as a “CO” (conscientious objector.)”

 

Jake just grabbed that one out of the air as quick as he could. He had procrastinated for weeks on crafting and submitting petition that was due within the next two weeks. He had rationalized that he didn’t need to prove to anyone that he was a pacifist but the reality was that the Department of Selective Service of the United States government required a little more evidence than just Jake’s word. Of course Jake wasn’t too keen at putting his short life on the line for some politician’s desire to prove that the United States would beat the shit out of any country that questioned it’s world dominance. So it was either heading for Canada or fighting authority. He always preferred the battles with authority.

 

Diana exhaled a great blow squeaking

 

“That is so cool, Jake. I can help you write it. I am on the law Review and am used to writing briefs where one is trying to build and prove a case! We’ll need more Jack and beer then!”

 

She fell backwards laughing and the ever-courteous Sundance helped her sit upright again.

 

“Thank you, you are such a sweet gentleman.”

 

There was that Cassidy cool blood boiling flowing to Sundance’s cheeks again…bright red! He was smitten a little by Diana’s tantalizing teasing and surprised that Jake had taken this anti-war pacifist notion to such an extreme. He didn’t want to say anything too complimentary to Jake yet and wanted to hear what Jake had to say about his views before Sundance would pass judgment or accept the fact that Jake was genuine about this. Actually, Sundance was smugly thinking

 

“I can’t wait to hear this fable!”

 

They all found their positions: Isabella on the couch with text and notebooks in hand; Sundance on his back placing the stereo’s speakers on both sides of his head listening to Dylan’s Rainy Day Women; Diana snuggled next to Jake with yellow legal pad and pen, and Jake of course drifting again watching the four gold fish circling each other locked in a world of their own in the bowl on the coffee table not making any progress.

 

Diana bubbled up

 

“Ok let me interview you Jake and then you can build your letter to the draft board around the responses to my queries.”

 

“What? Huh? Oh yeah”

 

Isabella tried to focus on her studies but couldn’t help but to shake her head.

 

Diana probed forward and not looking up from her pad she began

 

“So, when did you first realize that you might have pacifist tendencies?”

 

“ Well, ya know, I uh. I guess it all started being brought up Catholic. I mean I used to think about how Jesus is never quoted as saying “let’s kick the shit out of those folks” or “Let’s kill those Romans or Samaritans.”

 

“Ok, let me put it another way, when did you first feel that war and killing was wrong?”

 

Jake rambled on about the high school debate about the war in Vietnam, the readings he had done to prepare for the debate and how the self- immolation and sacrifice of the Buddhist monk moved him into another frame of mind about violence and war. He admitted that he was an angry person and how in the past and even sometimes now he was quickly tempted to use physical violence to protect himself or others. But it seemed that he had a semblance of sincerity as he elaborated about how he didn’t like that side of himself or others who acted in a similar fashion.

 

Sundance was now in the middle of “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Dylan as he opened his eyes, lifted his head and interrupted Jake.

 

“Oh, please!”

 

and he quickly returned back to the floor and the music.

 

Diana curious and writing not looking up continued

 

“But is their an event or person who may have influenced you more than any other?”

 

Jake explained that in a Russian Literature class he wrote a paper on how the writings of Thoreau influenced Tolstoy and Tolstoy’s writing left an impression on Gandhi and subsequently Gandhi’s writings and actions influenced Martin Luther King’s approach to non-violent protest and anti-war activity.

 

“Yeh, but that’s academic but is there any one incident or major influence?”

 

Jake paused… and paused, took a sip of Jack Daniels and paused some more.

 

“Well, when I first arrived at Fairleigh Dickinson University at the Madison campus I nervously stood on line to register for classes. There I met this older woman, Dr. Weingarten. I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that she was assigned as my academic advisor. As I sat down to begin our conversation about class selection she said ‘ so tell me Jake what are you about? Who are you and what do you want to contribute to society while your alive?’ I was beside myself. I couldn’t answer her. I was speechless”

 

Both Isabella and Sundance interrupted simultaneously and in harmony

 

“Now, that’s hard to believe”

 

and they returned to what they were doing.

 

“She then frightened the beegeebees out of me by suggesting that I take Calculus explaining that if I could learn that I could learn anything. I told her that I was afraid that if that’s the case I might not be able to learn anything. She asked if my grades in History were accurate, they were always A’s and if my SAT score on the special History SAT was accurate, it was almost 700. I told her they were and I had planned at that point to be a History Major. When I was done with her filling out this form I had noticed that she signed me up for a course she was teaching ‘The Anthropology of War.’ I had no clue about what that meant or who she was but at that point I figured ‘what the hell!’

 

When I bought the textbook for that Anthropology course I read the author’s autobiography, it was Dr. Weingarten! Actually she had been a famous anthropologist, women’s rights advocate from the 1930’s and a peace advocate who was not granted tenure at Columbia because of her anti-war activities in the 1940’s.

 

In the beginning of that text book ‘Anthropology of War and Hate’ were some of Dr. Weingarten’s opening remarks at the conference on The Art and Science of Living in a Peaceful Society held in Montreal around 1939 or so.  If I can recall it went something like  ‘War and violence have always been about control; control of land, control of purse strings and of course control of how and what people think and feel. Blah blah, …Consider how those who desire this control become out of control with their propensity for violence against others when they perceive that they have lost control or their control is threatened.’ Blah and blah…you know. Well, Meeting her and having her as a professor changed my outlook on why wars and violence happen and how we need to try and stop …war and violence I mean. I guess I had been ready to hear the news and begin to soak in what I had read just a year or two earlier in high school.”

 

“Wow, I think I have read some of her stuff. She is one of the primary movers of the original women’s movement back in the early 1900’s. But we are still on the academic side of things here.”

 

Diana had ceased her faux calligraphic writing as she listened to Jake.

 

“Let me continue…. and just a year later Dr. G assigned my English class to read ‘Johnny Got His Gun ‘ by Dalton Trumbo, a novel I will never forget and then there were the Aristides husband and wife professors who were also dismissed from Columbia for their anti war activities who taught a class I took on “famous Pacifist writers”, and by coincidence, if you believe in coincidences, my ole high school buddy Billy invited me on a pilgrimage to my first peace rally at St. Peters College where Daniel Berrigan the Jesuit radical priest, who’s writings I read years earlier ,  spoke and  …”

 

Diana turned a little nasty for a moment

 

“Ok, Ok…let’s take a break and think about your formation as pacifist. But before we do I wanna know if you are such a pacifist why are you wearing a POW bracelet?”

 

“ Well it has the name of Lt Fleming J. Baumer who is actually missing in action transport pilot who was shot down over Laos in ’67 on his way to deliver food and medical supplies to the Tom Dooley Foundation for Refugees. Too many people have sacrificed too much just so a few can protect their economic-political-religious interests. I didn’t see anyone coming to the aid of the Dalai Lama and Buddhists when the Chinese invaded Tibet or …”

 

“Ok ,Ok…she gets it “

 

Isabella had heard all this before and had to stop the two-hour tried and true repeated speech on the nature of poverty, racism and war in the world.

 

Diana jumped to her feet grabbing at Sundance’s arm still resting on the floor.

 

“Ok, time for bed. We will continue at dawn. I work best at dawn. So get some sleep because I have a million questions for you to answer. Remember to make love not war! Ha…. Peace brother!”

 

Sundance was not reluctant to the pull on his arm as he followed immediately behind to Diana’s bedroom not even bothering to turn around or smile or anything. He slammed the door behind them. Bang!

 

“Don’t even think about it”

 

 Isabella grumphed from behind her text book and added

 

“I need to study so find something else to do.”

 

Jake reached for his cigarettes, lit one. Grabbing his tattered corduroy jacket, he easily slipped his arms through the sleeves in almost one magical motion.

 

“I need some air now”

 

And eased through the door that he had come through just a few hours earlier and was gone. He didn’t even notice the gentle rain.

 

Not looking up from her books Isabella said sweetly

 

“Ok, be careful. You’re not in Kansas anymore! Dreamer!”