He was now sitting, writing in his book. The figure she'd seen earlier was now close enough to view plainly.  He was a man as she had guessed.  An old man with a scraggly grey beard.  He was thin and slightly bent and he was carrying a stick over one shoulder and it did have a bundle tied on to the end of it.  It was just like in a kid's book, the bindle stiff!  But here on the vast near-empty beach, there was an implied dignity and a haughty solitude to his age.  She looked back at the man, he was grimacing and he crumpled up a page he had torn from his notebook.  He shut it and rose only half attending to the apparition she  pointed out with so much enthusiasm.  But this mood passed as they continued down the beach, now broad and empty.

And they were down along the shore talking, zig-zagging into the water and out.  Examining the things that moved with the tide, digging into the sand and feeling the tiny shrimps squirming in their hands.  They were talking freely, merrily almost and then a small airplane flew over them.  They looked up into the blue sky.  The airplane turned around and buzzed down so low that she felt like falling to the  ground.  He continued looking up.  They walked again, talking while the plane buzzed them several more times.  She thought about the plane.  It was just a plane, probably some guys on their day off.  She wondered how he viewed its presence.  She didn't like its noise and she was pleased when it disappeared up the coast and she could no longer hear it.

She looked at him.  She watched him walk.  She was some distance from him now and the sand was exaggerating his gait. There was something very unusual about it... something extraordinary.  He seemed to move forward almost to meet with himself, as if a part of him had already gone on ahead.  His limp, also a part of him, was a rhythm obediently following after.

She felt serious now, noble.  She admired him, she thought he was fine.  She had not forgotten her own suffering but now felt pride and resignation.  There were burdens in this life.  Her own pain mingled with a warm anguish and melted while her edges became more distinct, her gaze more contained.  There was a barely perceptible hardness to her bearing, a solitariness.  It was a feeling that she most associated with being a woman.  She had felt this feeling before in her life, always because  of the man.  Now, for the first time, she felt it with  the man.  She felt it in relation to the sky so blue above her head and to the long long beach, the cliffs and the sea, and to the whole wide world.  And she felt it WITH the man.

They were nearing the cliffs now and there was no one ahead of them.  They came to a small stream and followed it up toward the cliff.  It was a dry and salty climb, up over the long sand, past the high tide line where some seaweed debris was yielding its last free moisture to the day.  He bent over and picked up one sticky strand of kelp sending forth a flurry of flies.  At one end there was a translucent ochre globe with tiny roots.  It made a soft pop sound as he pressed it open between his fingers.  He looked at her and dropped his arm opening his hand and the seaweed tumbled back among the other things the ocean had left there in the night, at high tide, under the glow of the full moon.  The same moon that had shown its blue light into her bedroom window.  She looked at the piece of seaweed, its  broken orb, other sea things, styrofoam, the invisible jellyfishes with purple and blue veins,  the flies swarming.

He told her it was low tide now and mentioned the moon and  sun.  He said that the tide was their friction, that it slowed the earth's rotation down, minutely of course.   She looked back down at the row of debris ...friction.  She stepped over it avoiding an overturned crab whose carapace had been pecked open by seabirds, and inside the flesh was half missing while half of it remained clinging to the shell.  They continued along the stream up toward the cliff, there the stream had carved out a tiny chasm and the water trickled out between the semi-soft banks of the cliff.  He paused here. There were some fresh green grasses and small white flowers.   He squatted down and felt the water with his hand, he touched his wet fingers to his lips.  He examined the underside of a rock and then he replaced it.  He stood up and remained inert for what seemed to her several minutes.

She thought it was nicer near the shore, with the breeze and the fresh ocean mist, the wide space and cool wet sand. Here the sun beat down and vibrated in the still air, and although the stream provided some relief, it was so meager and its bed was streaked unwholesomely with a rusty colored residue.  The water itself was clear and at the junction with the cliff there was just enough depth for a few bubbles to form.  They broke cleanly before the tiny trickle spread  back out to fit the broad uniform shallow stream bed.  There was no stagnation or stoppage and the air's only odor was salt.  He mentioned some metal or other and she thought he must be referring to the streak in the stream, and anyway it was all making her sort of dizzy.

Then they walked up the  beach beside the cliff until they came to a second stream that was broader than the first. She had adjusted to the dryness now and thought that this stream was almost pleasant.  It gurgled nicely.  She noticed how soft and sandy the banks were and she wondered why they didn't collapse and force the water underground.  The crevice worn was so very thin, half a foot perhaps in some spots while the cliff itself rose easily twenty meters above them.  He examined this stream too, then they followed the stream out toward the sea. When they came to the driftwood line they left the stream and followed it instead.

A sweet wind was coming from off shore and they took off their extra clothing.  He wore only his pocket pants with everything else tied around his waist.  She admired his smooth pink shoulders.  She now had only a bathing suit top and her  cotton "paint" pants on.   The bathing suit top was bikini style and she had made it herself out of the most unusual material which she had found at a bargain store.  It was printed from a photograph of a fern forest and she had lined it in bright pink cotton.  The pink showed ever so slightly at the bust, and between this and the unlikely placement of a deep green  photographic representation of a fern forest ...she could feel his gaze warm upon her chest.

She became self-conscious and remembered her brother's joke about her fern forest bikini. "It's my Viet Cong suit,"  she said, expecting him to laugh.  Instead, he reached over and took her hand.  She blushed hotly and followed along beside him.  Still feeling shy, her mind floated over what she had said, not as a joke but rather in an "as if..."  sort of way. She and he:  they.

And immediately she remembered a scene from her past.  She was sitting at her parents' table having dinner. There was a guest that night, a young doctor, just off for a tour in Viet Nam.  She and he had jogged a mile before dinner, and now they sat opposite at the dinner table chatting pleasant chatty things.  The phone rang, and she got up and went up stairs to her parents' bedroom where the phone was, lifted the  receiver to her ear.  "Hello," she said, matter of factly, wondering what was in the covered casserole. "May I speak..." and  before he had even finished, her heart had skipped three beats,  she had forgotten the people downstairs, and , she fairly shrieked his name                   back into the phone.  Shocked by her own intensity and volume she realized she was shaking all over as she heard him say her name back questioningly.  "Yes," she intoned, "hello."  He was her first beau.  He called to say he was finished with summer school now, and might be able to get down to North Carolina for a visit.  There was a pause, a flash of horror went through her as she imagined being in the same room with her parents ...AND ...with HIM.  "You know any place we can get a good crab dinner?" he  continued uncertainly.  She gathered herself together and they talked and maybe he's come down, oh how fine it would  be to see him...but with her parents TOO!   She nearly turned inside out ...but that would be ...later.

After the phone call, she remembered brushing her clothes, as if to conceal something, hide some precious secret but a dim awareness kept creeping in of a strange lurid blindness in her person, like  being banished from the Garden of Eden, before she'd barely entered.  She could see herself taking a roll and passing the basket, chatting and acting normally.  The next day, the doctor went off to Viet Nam.  Her boyfriend never did come down, and then, when she returned to school, they broke up suddenly.  Again she had felt that shamed inadequacy.  Her love, her own lost love became personified and accompanied her now as a specter.  It was as if her paradise had been offered away to  some celestial account keeper, her "what might have been", traded, without her consent.

For a moment the beach appeared to be strewn with bones and her dizziness burned off stingingly in the dry salt air.  Then all appeared blazingly ordinary.  She blinked and for the first time she thought of the doctor, directly thought of him, in this context, as a thief, with her parents as accomplices.   Had she seen it that way at the time would she have chosen differently?  But in the asking, she saw instantly that she was no longer the same she.  She could consider the question, now, afterwards, and afterwards was not at all the same thing.

A hot gust of salt air blew into her face and now it was her thoughts which pricked her, the driftwood had quit playing  tricks with her eyes.   The memory fled, a "chimera" which dissolved like the heat waves which rose from the sand.

He let go of her hand and she felt sad.  She wondered why the sand was no longer making its "squench" sound.  And the driftwood was white like bones even the smaller stick like pieces. The sun did it.  Bleached it white.  It must have laid there for a long time, no new storms to disturb its placement.

They walked diagonally away from the row of gentle white wood down toward the sea and continued on south, in silence, listening.  The waves workings, the bird voices and their own minds' tumble.  They were nearly stranded at high tide as the beach narrowed along the steep rock cliffs.  They scrambled part way up the cliffs in some places and ran between the waves in others.  They stopped at each stream and examined the stones.  At one there were many soft grey stones which the water had carved smooth holes in.  At another stream, she found a flat round stone that was partly red like bloodstone and partly green like jade and on one side the two colors were swirled together like the yin-yang symbol except without the dots.  It too went into the backpack. They crawled over large boulders that extended out into the sea.

At one stream there was a man sitting cross-legged in meditation. The water in the stream made a seven foot drop into a small pool below and the pool was itself only about seven feet from the tide's present reach.  The man was sitting on the south side of the stream very close to the pool and although the waterfall was thin, its drama and size were emphasized by the man's seated posture. Then there was the inrushing tide.  Perhaps he was listening to the two water sounds.  She wanted to look at the fresh green grasses growing behind the waterfall, but this sitting man somehow obstructed her examination.  She wanted to look at him too, but at the same time, she wanted to pretend he wasn't there at all.   She was careful not to bump into him as she climbed down off the boulder into his waterfall cove.   He remained absolutely motionless as they passed.   He was the first person they had seen since they had left the main beach.  She was glad when they were out of his sight.

Again she felt the man beside her.  She had forgotten  about his foot, in fact if he had suddenly ceased to limp,  then she would have remembered it, so accustomed she had become to this part of him.  It was like a refinement or a mark of character.  It was the way it fitted him, that made it so. Yes, she thought, it was as if an old old man lived inside the foot;  while the young one carried him along.  It was always the two;  sometimes bickering, sometimes humming, sometimes pressing, but always reminding one another of the many things that passed between them.

The sand was fine and silty beneath the slow waters.  She looked ahead at the man wading, limping across the shallow inlet. He was surrounded by his music now weaving back and forth and forward.  It was a light melody in the bright noonday sun;  now comic, now heroic.  There was no tragic, that part was wholly consumed.  He was like that. She felt heat rise in her body as she gazed after him...the old man who lived in the foot, and the young one.  The young one who was not slowed by the old man  but was rather animated by him, telling him stories to while away the time, singing to him even.

She thought about the distance they had come already, they must be near to Arch Rock.   From there it was only five miles back to Point Reyes Station and the path inland was smooth and broad and solid.  They could have lunch and rest a little at Arch Rock.

She ran to catch up with him.  His blond body was golden in the sun and he glowed pinkly.  She wanted to touch him, be affectionate,  but she lacked the skill.  Instead she brought two red apples out of the backpack and handed one to him. The apples were hard and red and juicy. They crunched nicely. When they finished them, they threw the cores on the beach where sea gulls flapped and squabbled over them.  They came around a corner of sand boulders and there was a wide smooth curving beach with steep cliffs rising above it.  At the end of the curving beach stood Arch Rock reaching out into the sea.

In no time they were standing at its foot, peering into the cave  which was the only way through to the other side, the side which led up to the top of the cliff.  The cave had only one foot of water in it at the moment, but each time a wave broke the water rose two or three additional feet.  By the time the water would find its way back out to sea, another wave would be crashing down and again flooding the passage way.

The cave turned so the opening on the other side could not be seen and its walls were slick and dripping from the ocean spray.  The floor of the cave was sandy beneath the changing water except for a few largish rocks.  She wondered if they were slippery.  She liked the cave and yet her hesitation to begin with each lull in the tide made her almost giddy with excitement.  Finally he went first chiding and mocking her and disappeared just as a wave came crashing down completely obliterating all sound but its own roar.  In the very next interval, she dashed into the cool dark cave. Silent, she emerged on the other side and ran -smack- into him.  He had stopped short of land and was poised on a small rock, awaiting her arrival.  She collided into him, his arms  circled around her and her momentum carried the two over and they stumbled precariously about in the rock bottomed stream.  They held tight onto one another despite lurches and lunges, and managed to regain their balance with only some splotches of wetness here and there.  They waded in the low water to land and to the small path that was cut in the rock. Sitting on the path they put their shoes back on, their shirts, and headed up to the top.

She went first noticing the tiny feathery plants that clung to the cracks in the rocks.  There were mosses and soft lichens too.  The stream bordered the path a short way and then wound off into the valley disappearing in a thicket of willows.

At the top of the cliff, they stopped and caught their breath, and then walked out onto the ledge.  They stood for a long time looking out past the waves crashing on the cliffs, out through the soft mist rising from below, through seagulls reeling in the updrafts to cormorants and coots bobbing on the water, way out to the Farrallon Islands. The sky was still bright and cloudless. There were two large ships moving northward, the closer one seemed to overtake the far one. The horizon was smooth and broad.

A group of pelicans appeared flying up the coast just beyond the breakers. They were in a "V" formation. Their flight was low, their wings almost touching the water. It was wonderful watching them fly.  First the lead pelican would bring his wings down and then ever so slightly later the two pelicans just behind would bring theirs down, followed by the next two and then the next while the lead pelican was in full glide, by now, quickly followed by the next two and so on.  The glides were long and so the pelicans would all be in glide position for a moment before the next wing  beat would break and pulse through the formation.

It made her stomach quiver tracing the tiny delay that doubled as it went down the rows and then......the glide.  She thought they moved like a modern music piece.  Their shapes  pleased her too, especially their huge bills and their thin throats which curved like the pipes under sinks.  Even their color was right.  There were seven pelicans in this group, then came another with four.

A gust of damp air blew up from below and she turned and looked at the man.   He stood firmly, still looking out to sea.  He began pointing out whales.   She saw them too, spouting and flapping their tails.  She imagined she saw one jump just as two seagulls landed behind her.   She remembered  another time she had been here and had sat talking with a girl from Alaska who was  camping.  While they talked,  a seagull with a fish in its mouth had flown in a circle  around them.  He liked that kind of story so she told him about it and showed him where they had been sitting.  He looked closely at the spot and pronounced that it may have meant "something" which made her feel very good.  She had felt good that day too.

Then she remembered another day, that time she had laid on top of the cliff and had cried and cried.  It was one of those cold bleak misty days and she had been certain that she was the only one here  and  then a  girl had climbed up from below.  She didn't know if the girl and heard her crying, and neither of them mentioned her wet puffy face and pink eyes.  The girl explained that she had been practicing "magic"  down below on the beach.  She said she was very lucky because a magic teacher had taken her for a student.

Then the girl performed some "magic" for her.  With precision and self-possession she opened her left hand revealing a quarter, tail side up.  Smiling warmly and confidently she gracefully brought her right arm up and with her thumb and forefinger lifted and twisted the quarter and laid it back down, head side up.  Still smiling, the girl looked now at herfor a response.  At first she wondered if perhaps she had missed something,  trying to conceal her tears, but then she decided that maybe since the girl was only a beginning student, well, maybe, that was all there was to it. She thanked the girl.  She thought the girl was very pretty, as they walked back to the parking lot,  talking in an ordinary way.

She did not tell the man about that day because it didn't make sense, even now, nor would she tell him about the day she had "mourned" the earth, and had "understood" death.

WEST

Chapter Five

And then she changed her mind and decided she would tell the man about the day she had "understood" death.  She had never tried to explain it to anyone before and if he thought she was thoughtless and immature, well, she was willing to find out.  So she began her story.

It had taken place only a few weeks after she had met the "magic" girl.  She had been crying a lot, not that she was a  "crier" ordinarily.  In fact until the year before last she had only cried twice in her whole life, but at that time, she seemed to spend all her free time crying, she didn't really know what it was that was making her so sad.  She had reasons but even the reasons weren't sufficient, at least not in themselves and furthermore they shifted and changed all the time.

There was teaching, but actually she found teaching rewarding despite those "other things"....she couldn't quite  put her finger on what "those other things" were, but something was wrong.   Maybe it had been her desire to succeed at teaching that had drawn her out so ...but no, it was just that nothing worked anymore, and though people had a knack for doing just what she didn't want them to do, it was really more than that alone.  And crying helped.   Sometimes it was good to cry.  Turning one's cheek to life's hardships was no longer adequate, but fighting wasn't her strength certainly and besides whenever she tried to speak up she'd find she was talking to the wrong person and getting in deeper and it was not quite clear anyway, and of course always too late.   Life was frustrating enough but lately she kept winding up "under fire".  It was as if she  were wrong!   And it would surprise her too,  the way things happened, and somehow that made it hurt a lot worse.  Crying had been consoling but it took up time and eventually it made her tired.  On that particular day however, she had walked, via the wood's route, all the way to Arch Rock without thinking and without enjoyment.  At the point she had looked out dully at the sea and then had climbed down the steep cliff path,  crossed the stream, and climbed up the opposite bank.  There she had sat, looking across to the hill where they were now sitting eating lunch.  It had been grey day with cold gusts of wind coming off the water so she had faced away from the cliff's edge.  Her eyes had traced the hill's form unconsciously as she'd sat in a mild stupor.

Slowly as she actually began to see the hill, she began to cry.  She cried simply because she hurt...Where had it begun?  She wondered.  She thought about her present life, her unhappiness and her "failure".  She thought about college before that. About guys she had known.  She wondered why she wasn't married.  She thought about high school even.  And happiness?  She had never really thought about happiness before. What was it anyway?  And she thought about her childhood, and her idea of what it would be like when she grew up.  And she felt so forlorn, so helpless and so lonely.  Then her tears had come more evenly and she had seen the rolling hill blurred with its rustling grasses.

She liked the hill, and she thought about death and about solitude.  And she thought about saying "Good-bye" and  about  death.  About her death and about loving.  She thought about mourning ...and she thought maybe there was no such thing...just mixed up feelings - dependencies.  Things went where they went. That's all.  Death itself was not so awesome, after all what held us here in life were the confused things, the troubles.  The beautiful things made no claim on us, even love ...  especially love!   And then it was the same somehow, living or dying, and she practiced saying "good-bye"  to the people and places she'd  known,  even to the things that she used at home.  It felt good. "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye."  It was easy.

And she looked at the hill and its form was perfect just exactly as it was and she loved the hill and so she said "good-bye" to the hill too and then she had a most peculiar feeling  as if the hill were not there at all.  She could see it all the while, the hill;  grass-covered, gently undulating in the sharp breeze, the hill;  ancient, enduring, indifferent, the hill;  wobbly.  And she was wobbly too.   It was a good feeling and a sad feeling and a warm feeling.  She sat for a long time.  Existence seemed so chancy...a momentary balance with no end points and no center either.  Like a line without dimension, only the further one got from its place of movement, the more semblance it had, the more urgent it appeared.

She felt she had understood something that day, she felt complete, simple.  She told the man about it and about her feelings and she told him that she had "understood" death.  He listened with interest and she wondered if he could really have understood what she said.  She felt most definite that he had and she felt confirmed in her experience, even though its memory was a bit less vivid now, partially from the telling.

He put down the carrot he was chomping on and looked away, then he looked back at her, directly into her face.  His eyes burned a hot blue, his face shown full pink and his eyebrows glowed white in the sun, "Have you ever seen your own death?" he asked and  paused, "You can, you know?"

"No," she flushed and without thinking, asked, "Have you?"

"Yes," he said,  "and it's red and black."

Now she looked away.  Yes, she thought to herself, he understood death differently.  He had been to Viet Nam, he had seen dead people, men dying, their insides spilled upon the ground.   Some of them he had known...Perhaps he thought she was silly, but no, she didn't feel like he thought she was silly either.  No, no she had not seen her own death, not the sensual fact ...nor was she too keen on the idea.  No she could not see the future, she didn't think that was possible.  Even if one got an idea about something, it lacked "yetness" so how could one "know".   But he had said he had seen his own death and that it was black and red.  And he had said it with a certainty, why, if he knew ...couldn't he ...make it different? Unless, he didn't want to  ...and then she remembered a story. "Have you ever heard the story of Silenus?  Silenus and King Midas?" she asked.

"No. What is it?"

"Well," she began, "King Midas was not only a king but he was also very rich.  He had everything he could want but still he wasn't happy.  Silenus, who was a wood nymph, was reported to know the answers to many things, and among them he was said to know what was best for man.   Midas heard of Silenus' knowledge and he set out to ask him, but first he had to catch him since Silenus was not eager to tell Midas anything at all.

"Eventually Midas did catch him and he wouldn't let him go until he told.  Silenus said,that what was best for man was never to be born ...and, if he was born, then it was best to die  soon."  She looked at the man who was listening intently and cracking open peanuts, and she continued, "Midas of course wasn't pleased by Silenus' story ...but, the Greeks were."  This she said with much emphasis, and went on telling him everything she could remember about the Greeks.

She told him about the early theater and how the plays were always about the gods, and how the people would come and sit in the amphitheater and cheer and jeer and cry and generally emote over the dramas.  The Greek choruses further piqued the audience and so going to a play was a little like having a dream, but in public.  She went on to relate how the gods did stupid things, low things and how they suffered wildly and she concluded, "so unlike Midas, the Greeks were ennobled by the hardships of life and they gloried in a long life filled with as much passion as possible."  She looked at the man now, no longer sure why she had told him the story.  He said he liked it, and then he said he would like to live forever.

She thought he was like Midas the way he wanted to know everything, how he wasn't afraid to ask, but unlike Midas, he understood.  That's what she thought, he with his twinkling blue eyes looking right into her.  She was so timid sometimes, like right now, with him.  What was it she was afraid to ask?   She could barely look at the man.  And, to look?  Was not looking almost the same thing? The same as asking, that is? And what was he telling her?

Then he continued, "Maybe if I were four hundred or so, I'd take up teaching.  Then I might know what to teach, have something to say."

This seemed like a shift in the conversation to her but she welcomed it feeling exposed by the previous exchange. She thought to herself now about teaching, she thought she had had something to say, but if she'd  said so, then no one would have learned anything,  but not saying so, well, one still couldn't say so.  And she thought about how to tell him her thought but before she could figure it out, he said,  "But after all, there isn't any point in knowing something if you can't use it, for yourself and your friends."  So she thought about that instead.

Then he told her that he liked the way she thought, he said she was "hard to keep up with".  It surprised her because that was exactly what she thought about him and yet he was saying it about her.  They looked at one another.  He sat leaning against one of two boulders which sat here in the grey-green field with the attitude of stones in a meadow.   A berry bush made a similarly sized third mass and the three described a soft curve if you linked them.  He was playing with the peanut shells, sort of burying them, or at least digging into the earth with them at a spot just to the right of his right hip.  She sat opposite him in a cross legged position, nibbling on a caramel and an apple in alternating succession.

Then he began a story about Rome.  The Romans had risen, she remembered with the decline of the Grecian culture.  His story was about the founding of Rome.  He said that the whole city was laid out according to an ideal of order and harmony which the Romans designated  "cosmos".  He said they dug a hole and from its center which represented the center of the world, they determined where the streets would be, the buildings, walkways, parks.  Because it all was from the one same point, each thing related to the next, but not directly.  Then he said, after they were finished planning and building the city, they covered "cosmos" up.  That way the parts of the city referred to one another and their ordering principal was protected and fortified.  He said they were the first city planners.

She liked his story but the idea of two intermingling orbits seemed even more stable and attractive just now.  She took a large swig of water and handed the bottle to him.  Then she brought out a tiny tin of candies.  The tin said in bold letters:  PASTELLETTES and in small letters just below:  peppermint breath mints.

She closed up the backpack and they began the walk inland silently sucking on the tiny white peppermint candies which in time turned into threadlike centers that didn't melt and instead required chewing.  They spoke little on the hike back, sometimes he would trail ahead and she would follow along watching him walk, and at other times she would take the lead.  Hardly ever did they walk together.  It took two hours walking first through meadows, thickets, and small forests until finally they were beneath huge trees that towered high over their heads and met in the air like the walls of a great cathedral.  Slowly the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, its light coming in long shafts and beams illuminating the interior space with its own objects and then only as a glow. The height of the already enormous trees was further increased by the way the land on either side of the path rose sharply, too sharply it seemed to support such tremendous vertical tree trunks which glowed like columns in the fading light.  The turbulent undergrowth of fern, berry bush, wild azalea, prim rose and lilac also caught the light in a complicated filigree pattern which appeared half as metal and half as cloud.

When they reached the trailhead it was nearly dark and the parking lot there was almost empty.  They walked out to the main road and stood waiting for a ride.  Their car was all the way out at Drake's Beach.  They had walked seven miles down the beach and then five miles inland,  but by car, by land or road rather it was maybe twenty miles or more back to the  car, and over steep hilly roads.  They had planned on hitchhiking back but had imagined that it would be earlier, still light.  First they both stood holding out their hands to the few cars that came by, then he sat down and she tried alone.

At length they gave up entirely and began walking to the small bar on the main road.  They figured they could find someone there who would give them a ride and a beer might taste good too.  Her feet hurt and she wondered how he had been able to hike so far.  She had noticed him grimacing once or twice on the hike and along the highway in the car lights, and too, he had been quiet for a long time now.

HOLES

     Chapter Six

When they reached the bar she went in first, he was close behind.  She felt proud being with him and also shy as the cool smoky bar air swept across her face and several of the customers turned to see who had just entered.  She felt her sunburn flush under her blouse and she wondered if she was blushing.  Her bathing suit strap cut sharply into her neck and she felt exposed somehow. 

There was an older woman at the end of the bar, then the bar bent and after an empty space of three stools there was a youngish man then one vacant stool, then two men, one old and bearded and the other slightly younger and plumpish.  Just beyond them he indicated that she should sit, and he took the  stool beside her on the empty side of the bar a few seats from its end where a door led presumably to a kitchen.

The bartender, a tall thin man with brown hair came and stood opposite them.  "Two beers...." and he turned to ask her  her preference.  The bartender brought the beers and set them down before the pair.   The man put a five dollar bill on the counter and the bartender walked away ignoring it.

They picked up their beers, clinked glasses, and he said, "To Bacchus!," which she repeated, and they tilted the bottles up, savoring the pungent biting cold liquid.  The mention of Bacchus had turned the heads of the two men to her immediate right and the bartender also pricked up his ears. She remembered at that moment that Silenus was Bacchus' teacher and she told him which further interested the nearby men.

"Do you know the story of the Midas touch?" came a voice from two seats away, which she realized was being addressed to her.   She turned, amazed at the coincidence of Midas coming up again.

"No, only that he turned his daughter into gold and then was sorry," she answered, carefully looking at the man wondering just what he had up his sleeve.  It was the older man with the thinning hair, long, to his shoulders and scraggly.  He was missing a few teeth and had a beard  which was the same yellow off-white color as his hair.  His eyes were bright and he now was leaning out onto the bar with nearly half of his body straining to make contact with the two.

"Yes, so he bathed in the river Pactolus," and added, "To  remove the Midas' touch."  He paused smiling.  He now had both of them in direct view, "It was because of Silenus, you just mentioned Silenus didn't you, and Bacchus?"  he inquired alarmingly, as if some proof lay within the answer.

"Yes," she replied hesitantly.

"Well, that's how it happened.  Midas caught Silenus in his garden, he was drunk, sleeping in Midas' roses and Midas  wouldn't let him go, so Silenus granted him one wish if he'd just let him go.  So he asked for everything to turn to gold, everything he touched that is."  And the old man drew a breath looking seedier than is proper for a man his age to look, or that's what she thought and she was somewhat overwhelmed by his knowledge on the similarities, and too, just being in a bar.  The old mancontinued "so when Midas let Silenus go, he went right to Bacchus and Bacchus granted Midas his wish."

"But Silenus was Bacchus' teacher, why didn't Silenus just do it himself?" she asked as if to contradict the man.  Now the old man was fairly glowing.  She thought there was a glower beneath his beguiling smile.

"Silenus was a teacher, Bacchus is a god." he pronounced haughtily and winked to the man on her other side.

"Oh, " she said weakly and stared back at the bottle of beer.

Then as if by apology he reiterated his earlier statement about the River Pactolus and how Midas cured himself of the Midas touch by swimming there.  The young man ordered a drink for the teller of the tale and put several more bills out onto the counter.  The bartender delivered the drink and wrote it down.  They had a  "tab" already.

The whole time the story was being told the man between her and the old man sat conspicuously leaning back, so as not to disrupt the story, spinning his head back and forth, following the exchange with great interest.  The bartender set a new drink in front of him too and said, "lt's on the house."   He gazed down the bar at the young man who had been looking toward the story telling group all the while and asked him, "How about you, Vince?  Ready for another?"  Vince indicated the full drink before him and his beer chaser and asked for some Cracker Jacks instead, so the  bartender handed him a box.  The bartender turned to the old lady, "Milly?"  She held up a full glass.  It was filled with a white liquid that looked like milk.

Then the bartender raised his own glass and said, turning, "King Midas."  He held up his glass in salute.  Then he looked at the couple and asked, "Do you know how he got his ears?"

"No," he said.

"What ears?" she chimed in.

"He had donkey's ears," the bartender remarked matter of factly.  "There was a musical contest and King Midas was appointed to be the judge.  The contest was between Apollo who played upon his silver lyre and Pan whose instrument was pipes of reed.  Midas chose the reeds which made Apollo so mad that he retaliated by giving Midas donkey's ears."  He stopped abruptly.  She considered what he said, Apollo was a major deity, even more major than Bacchus, why Dionysus came before Bacchus, in the Bacchus mode, say as an equal to Apollo ...so  the two stories were the same but opposite.  Before she could speak, the old man spoke again,

"Did you hear about Midas' barber?"

The bartender chuckled and said, "Yes, that's good," and he walked away and refurbished the young man's drink and the older lady's too.  He came back to his stool and since the old man had not continued with the story he began, he continued himself, "Midas was very ashamed of his donkey ears and so he kept them always under his cap.  The barber however, couldn't help but see them.  He swore he would never tell the gruesome secret,  but in time the  burden proved too great. So he dug a hole and weeping told the hole the entire story several times and then filled it back up."

Now the bartender was smiling the old man's ludicrous smile, the old man nodding in approval,  the middle aged man listening pertly.  The bartender continued, "In spring, reeds grew up from the hole and stirred by the breeze the reeds whispered the story.  Some say they decreed the wisdom of siding with the strongest, others say they sing of virtue, while still others claim they are  saying,  'bow to the gods,  bow to the gods'."  Now his smile was gentle but quick as well.

The middle aged man began to laugh, it was a rolling "let-go" sort of laugh.  She turned toward him.  He was a little pugy, round cheeked, white hair and beard, blue eyed cherubic sort of man, and he had until now made no contribution to the conversation at all except that of listening.  Now he fairly snorted with laughter, stopping just long enough to say, "or maybe, they were saying, '2 in 3, 3 in 2.'" And again he shook with laughter.

It was infectious and first the bartender joined in, then the old man, the young man, the old lady too, the man beside her was already laughing when she checked and she, of course, laughed too.  It was a bar after all.

When the laughing stopped everyone bought a new drink. The bartender delivered the drinks and wrote it all down. When he brought their beers, the man ordered a crab salad for them to split and they talked with each other about getting a ride.  He had already determined that the younger man, Vince, was the most likely candidate.

The salad arrived and reminded her of the crab that they had seen on the beach today.  The meat was yellowish and the lettuce was limp.   She covered it with some overly red "Louie" dressing and took a few bites.  He ate with his usual indifference.  The bread was good.

Then he went down and sat with the young man for a few minutes and bought him a beer.  Then he returned, the young man joined them, sitting on the far side toward the kitchen.  His name was Vince and he was filling them in on the other bars in town.  The Two Ball Bar was the best.  It sounded wild. There was a barn dance too tonight.  Vince crunched the last of his Cracker Jacks between swigs of his drink and swills of his beer.  The man ordered another drink and beer for Vince, laying more bills upon the counter.  He proceeded to tell Vince the story, that is, about their predicament and their needing a ride.  Vince hedged at first wanting them to join him for a night on the town.  Vince had the car so the man continued to cajole him, try to win his favor.

She sat and stared at the bar now.  All bars have ornaments.   Here, there was a mirror running the full length of the bar, before which were hundreds of figurine liquor bottles.  All the in-use bottles were below and they were ordinary.  The ones above were an impressive collection, by virtue of their vast number, if for no other reason.  There were knights in armor, ladies riding horses, hobos, presidents, wolves, leopards, whales, seals, dogs, a penguin, boats, airplanes, cars, bicycles, all manner of things.  Some figures represented story people and some looked like large clumsy Hummel figurines.  Certainly, many of the bottles were from foreign countries.  She looked at the people in the bar, the old woman drinking alone, the two men chuckling together, and the bartender roving.  She was tired and a bit nervous about their ride and about the man having to chat with Vince so cunningly.

There was no TV and no music box.  A small old fashioned radio sat on the back bar amid rows of glasses and other miscellany.  It wasn't turned on and she could hear a cricket nearby.  Its chirp filled the bar with an eerie cheerfulness.  She looked around and spotted it on one of the bottle shelves.  It was about at eye level and she could just barely see it between a double figurine of Romeo and Juliet (or some pair of lovers) -  they were embracing, and a fish standing on its tail.  Its chirp was uncannily sweet and clear.  She sat musing over the idea that all that sound was produced by a little bug rubbing its legs together.

Her reverie was broken by a shrill shriek coming from her left -twirrrooouuu-  It was Vince.  He had gotten a bird whistle in his Cracker Jacks.  Twirrrooouuu, twirrrooouuu it went.  She laughed both at her surprise and at the sound. Vince would give them a ride afterall.

They finished their beers, he ordered a six-pack-to-go, the bartender took his  money, requiring a bit more than the amount already laying on the counter, it was a  pretty sum for folks like themselves.  He left no tip but made a hearty farewell instead, saying,  "We'll be back, we'll be back...."  repeatedly and giving  each patron a phrase or a bow, all with a flourish.  He even gestured a "good-bye" to "Milly" who was still silently sipping away upon her strange white drink.  She turned and received his  attention with polite non-recognition  and a practiced  somewhat stale vanity.

And the three were off stumbling into Vince's car.  It was an old black sedan sort of a car with a large hole in the floor.  He explained this proudly to the man who took the seat beside him, and, over the hole.  She got into the back seat and felt none too happy carelessly dropping her backpack and picking it up indifferently.

He pulled a beer off of the six-pack and handed it to Vince, who snapped the top -pheut- as he revved the engine. He offered her one but she didn't want it, so instead he popped its top and took a sip himself.  He could tell she was worried but he was too occupied with Vince to give her his attention.  He reached his hand into the back seat and held hers for a while.

Vince headed the auto out onto the road, while her man began querying Vince about this and that. Vince again tried to get them to change their minds and go to the dance at least.  She sat looking at the two men in the front.  It was the first time she had had an opportunity to really look at Vince. He was thin, swarthy and darkly clad, this much she knew from the bar.  Now he would turn full around to look at the man taking his eyes off the road altogether.   She sat watching his profile appear and reappear, being herself careful not to say anything, for fear he'd  turn completely around.  She sensed that Vince was afraid to talk to her and she was more than glad to mutely remain "his  girl"  though she knew that her presence somehow added to the drama taking place in the front seat.  It went something like this.  He would try to occupy Vince with conversation so Vince wouldn't purposely drive off of the road.  But Vince was also drunk.  Vince would  alternately be genuinely involved in the discussion or its possibilities, and then his driving would improve, up to a point.  If he didn't talk to him continuously, then Vince would feel tricked.  Then he would speed up, taking the curves and hills with an awful abandon.  Their fear becoming his interest.  There was much squealing of tires and at one moment she was certain they were about to sail off into space never to return.  The road was narrow and although the hills were mostly rolling, they were enormous and at places they dropped off altogether.  At night they all seemed that way.

She sat frozenly in the back seat.  It was as if Vince believed that his suicidal fury was not capable of completing itself since they were in the car.  He reached his hand back and held hers. Again.  She could see he was earnestly frightened now too and yet he continued to be casual, to cajole.

After what seemed an eternity, they arrived.  She got out shaking.  They lit up a joint, while she got out of his car and unlocked her own, placing the backpack on the front seat and went down to the beach.  She ran as fast as she could and then she ran faster.  She wasn't afraid of the birds she scared up out of the dark in her path as she might have been on another occasion.   She wasn't even afraid of stepping on them.   She ran and ran and ran.   She ran until she fell over. And then she just lain there in the sand, with the wind sandblasting her exposed parts and listening to the roar of the surf pounding on the beach.  She didn't want to go back until they had finished, until Vince had gone away.

She thought about Vince and she thought about him, and she thought about his being with Vince, his needing to cajole him....They were still alive.  The surf pounded.  She listened to the other night sounds.  The bunches of birds moving around her in the dark, she could hear them now disturbed with their resettling.  She waited for what seemed a long time, in the wind, in the sand, in the uncertainty, then she returned.

She passed near them, they were back by the estuary, in between some sand dunes to get out of the wind.  She could hear the distinct snap of beer cans opening, so she yelled to him, "Let's  go. I'm cold," as fiercely as she could.

"OK,"  he said, "in a minute."

So she went and got in the car.  A few minutes later, he  opened the door, still yelling to Vince and promising some other time they'd all go drinking and have a great time, hit all the spots, and nice to meet you and thanks for the ride.  He got in and shut the door.  He looked at her and sighed, "Yahweh," and then he said nothing more being suddenly too exhausted and she agreed.  Vince squealed away.  They sat silently for a few minutes allowing Vince a good lead, and then they too drove away, slowly into the night. 

It was a long drive home and the car's motion in the darkness had the effect of restoring some feeling of security. They rode numbly, but steadfast to their flesh.  He recovered first and remarked about the men in the bar.  Then they were back.  She parked the car and they stumbled into the house.  He showered and went immediately to bed, and was fast asleep by the time she had washed and crawled in beside him.  She too slid off into a deep slumber.

                                            ALBEIT

                                Chapter Seven

For the second night, the full moon shone in the window past the plum tree, the plum tree in bloom, whose near branches strummed softly upon the screen.  It was a dim blue light, and he awoke with a start as a muscle in his leg finally relaxed and caused his leg to jump.  A piercing sensation flowed through his groin and behind his knee as if his leg had been asleep, while a muscle in his calf wiggled wildly out of control.   He lain there waiting for the giggitting to stop.  He knew from previous experience that he would not be able to walk until the sensation stopped.  Finally, he managed to get up and go to the bathroom where he used the toilet, leaving its seat up, and had a long drink of water.

Returning to the bedroom, he heard her say something into her pillow.  It was muffled and rather too fast, like a 33rpm record played on 78.  Still she said the word twice and it sounded like "albeit" or maybe "marionette".  But actually she was saying "pastellette".  She had just had two dreams at once as she sometimes did, and they both came down to the same thing,  "pastellette".

In the first dream, the old man in the bar who told the first story kept breathing in her face but when she'd look up at him, it would be her "southern" man instead, and he was trying to put his arm around her, but it was in public and besides he had bad breath, so she kept trying to give him a "pastellette".

In the other dream she was with the young man too, but in this dream, the "magic" girl came and joined them as they were finishing their lunch.  She performed some "magic" for them, as she had done on an earlier occasion for just the crying girl.  What she did was almost the same, except, it was a dream.

Here, the "magic" girl, with her left hand, reached over and drew a coin out from behind the man's ear.  On the palm of her left hand she displayed the coin, it was silver and gold. Then she brought up her right arm, and with her forefinger and her thumb she picked up the coin, turned it once and laid it back down.   Now the coin she displayed was red and black.  Then she closed her left hand with the coin still resting in her palm, and when she reopened it, there was a "pastellette".  With the fingers of her right hand she took the pastellette  and brought it to her lips, closed her eyes, turned into a heron, gave a tiny jump and flew away.  A  "pastellette".

Hence, through some necessity of the mind to tread but one path, the two dreams had led her to approximately the same place which came out as a single muffled accelerated kind of multi-syllabic gibberish..."pastellette".

He decided that his first guess was the better, "albeit", though he liked the idea of "marionette" too.  He drifted off to sleep thinking about the word "albeit" which meant he  remembered "although",  rhymes with "Waldo", or did it mean "by way of", at any rate it was Latin rhymes with ...catkin, matin ...ee,  pour que which is Spanish,  rhymes with famished...pourquoi??  pour favore,  explore, Theodore, fedora, and somewhere along the way, he was watching pictures.

At "explore" there were spelunkers wearing flashlights on their foreheads and crawling between stalagmites and stalactites with underground streams ...and by the time he arrived at "fedora"  which was probably the last sensible word which took form, he saw one, on Salvador Dali or someone like that, and the mustache, on closer inspection was made of feather stitching which immediately became branches of an espalier, the face had become a wall, then was blue with clouds, the espalier became an escalator carrying children who were juggling and then the balls were fruit and so on  ...until he wasn't able to pay attention any more.

And then it was morning.   He woke before she did and had lain there quietly beside her, stretching sort of, only he wasn't moving at all.  He thought of it as stretching anyway.  Soon she woke and turned to him.  She looked very refreshed, he thought. 

"Did you have any dreams?" he asked.

"No," she said, and before she could ask, "Did you?" she remembered one dream,  sort of, "Or, maybe yes?"  And without waiting for him to solicit her further she began, "I had a dream about gymnastics," she said, "I was doing cartwheels alternating beginning with my right arm and then my left," and then she paused, for a moment only to begin again with renewed enthusiasm, "and I was wearing a white crepe dress with a full skirt.  All across a soft green meadow, but sometimes I would do a back walkover instead."  And she ended, "I used to be able to."

He looked at her curiously, smiling his smile that looked like it came from behind his face and asked rather blandly, "You don't know what 'albeit' means do you?"

"Yes," she said, and then she wasn't so sure, but continued, "isn't it when you repeat a foot note, so you don't have to write out publisher and author, over and over, you just put 'albeit'."

"No, that's 'ibid.',"  and she climbed up out of bed and went into the other room.  She returned carrying a large book splayed open and dangling down heavily concealing both of her arms. "' All Be It', it's from Old English, common usage is 'although', that seems like the opposite to me," but then she spotted another word which had a special meaning to her.

"A person who doesn't have any pigment in their skin or hair is an 'abalone', that's a 'malapropos'."  She watched to see if he knew the right word.  "An albino," she said at length but not too much length, fearing he'd get it if she waited too long.  He was intrigued and so they tried to think of malapropos.  It made an unusual rhythm to their conversation.  There would be long silences  while  they'd  search their minds, then attempts at casual chat in order to slip one in, then surprise.

She wanted to know if he'd ever had "trifles" for breakfast or "calamine tea", adding it was good for sore throats.  He was a good guesser and remarked that he did have a sore throat and he wondered if they could just have orange juice, it was a good  "alexia".  When she made no reply, he went on to say that it was the "alexia of the  masses" according to Linus Pauling, or, was it Marx?  Then she got it,  "opiate of the masses" and "elixir of the gods".  He turned down eggs for breakfast since he'd had so many "photons" last night and besides, he informed her, he was a pure "hedgemonic".  She finally thought of one, saying he was certainly "rurally" assertive this morning, and was he from the 'topics' "?

Once they got going, it was hard to stop and she found her mind was still sifting for malapropos while she did the dishes.  She noticed that it wasn't the same if you found them accidentally.  When you made them up, it was easier to figure them out.

Afterwards they went for a short walk and ended up in a vacant lot that was strewn with old machine parts, buckets, 55-gallon drums, tires, rusty axles, hay bales, things without description, and of course rubbish, street litter.  They stood for awhile surveying the scene and the distribution over the hummocked and pitted land, the coarse dry foliage.  On one side the lot was bordered by a factory grounds.  There tall wooden buildings with long diagonal tin-colored shoots towered high above a continuous wire and wood fence.  The shoots and towers filled the sky and gave the vacant lot a distinctive tone.

She stood wondering what they did behind those walls and turning to him, she found he had walked away from her and was across the lot moving the things in the lot around, arranging them.  Instantly, the lot was transformed into an outdoor studio for them, equipped with a contemporary assortment of suburban artifacts.  The hostile items like the torn and soiled clothes became more touchable and glowed with a delicate squalor as if they were draped about in a living room or something.  And now, there was the excitement of a larger interaction, and especially with him.

He was stacking up old tires, rolling them into place and then putting them in piles.   He made two stacks with four tires each and about four feet apart.  He ran an old dull black heavy electrical wire from the top of one stack to the top of the other.  The wire dangled down between the two abundantly.  He next set about clearing the area, picking up the paper litter, tarpaper, old shoes, rags.  There was one grey crinkly tarp, stiff with paint and moldy on the edges.   He hung it up on a pipe embedded in a cement glob after first tipping the pipe to a slight diagonal.   He slipped an old fan belt over the top and the form hung belted and clumsy, its hem two feet above the ball of cement.

In the meantime, she had begin to move things about too.  She found a disconnected car door and with her heel she dug a rut in the hard barren soil.  It took a long time but at last she was able to wedge the door into the rut and it stood upright and solitary amid the scattered debris.  She was able to roll the window up; it wasn't even broken.  She turned and they nodded to each other.  He was now connecting all the pipes in the lot together, so they ran every which way including up over the hummock and back down.   She cleared a rectangular piece of earth, pulling weeds within its border and smoothing the surface with the flat side of a brick.  When she was satisfied with the rectangle's definition, she put the brick along the external perimeter, announcing to him, "It's  a conceptual piece."  He laughed and continued with his pipes.

She broke open a hay bale and mounded it on top of a sink on its side. The smooth white porcelain shone like a clean featureless face under the haystack.  It reminded her of the Magritte bird-cage-man, but was much more tender somehow, so she didn't label it at all.   She thought his sensibility was witty and light hearted; whimsical.   He had such good ideas.  The vacant lot had a completely changed look about it and they continued working finally becoming very simple in their constructions, four bricks in a row and two tires leaning together.  And then they sat down and reduced the size of their arrangements while becoming more complicated using twigs, lost screws, nails, and other small rubble, drawing circles and lines and constructing upwards too.  They were working upon but one composition, their hands coming closer and closer.  He looked up suddenly and said, "Let's go."  There was an element of sadness in his voice and she felt wistful too.

                                     KITE

                                       Chapter Eight

At the apartment, they ate and talked about the bar, the ride with Vince, and the hike at Point Reyes. They compared sunburns and did stretching exercizes.  He suggested that a short hike today might be beneficial and he knew just the spot.  She filled up the water bottles, stuck them into the backpack and they left in his truck.  He drove to the Red Hill shopping center and parked.

She looked questioningly at him, astonished that he had stopped here. "We're here," he said.  She was still tender from the morning, but even so, she could feel her mood sinking dangerously as she fought off confusion.  "Haven't you ever walked up Red  Hill?" he asked simply and matter of factly while simultaneously poking  around behind the seat.

"No," she answered obliquely, still wondering what would lure anyone up some hill right behind a shopping center, and this shopping center in particular!  There were so many other places....and nearby too....and her thoughts focused back upon  herself as she tried to adjust to the unpleasant surprise.

He found what he had been looking for behind the seat, it was a kite, complete with a new ball of kite string.  Then he felt around inside the glove box and pulled out a small cloth bag.  This he put in his front pants pocket. She had the backpack and the two fresh bottles of water.  They got out of the truck and he locked it, checking the straps and canvas on the boat.  All met his satisfaction and they started across the parking lot.  He had parked on the opposite side of the shopping center even though there were plenty of parking places closer to the edge.  In fact, she had rarely seen this few cars at Red Hill shopping center.  It was an odd time she figured, Thursday, noonish...

At the edge of the parking lot was the usual debris that one finds around public places, and its pulverized condition brought to mind the numerous feet that had tread upon it.   A deep melancholy stirred within her but she resisted its power feeling weakish in the legs.  She was glad when they were further away and the earth could be seen and felt.  The soil was particularly spongy and was a deep red color.  It was redder than raw sienna, and the grass ...it was the freshest brightest spring green.  The hill was much larger than she had ever noticed and it was steep too.  There was a path heavily tread, no doubt by high school kids, before they had their car licenses, or when they had no place to go, or maybe children had forts here, club houses.  She looked about for traces but found none.  There were trees too, good ones; willows, eucalyptus and some kind of deciduous tree she didn't recognize.

The climb up was costing her a lot more effort than she had anticipated and even considering the steepness her breath-lessness seemed disproportion.  Maybe it was her mood.  But with each new switchback, the weight lessened and by the time they were half way up her breathing normalized until she forgot all about it.  He stopped and looked back down over the valley.   Already the sounds of the shopping center and the traffic were muffled and the sound around them of birds and trees predominated.  They could see out over the shopping center, over the streets, to the slower streets lined with houses, trees, gardens and dotted here and there with bright turquoise swimming pools.  He asked if she could see his truck. She found it, it was about two inches long.  It was almost an aerial view and yet their feet were sinking into the pungent soft earth with its fat blades of spring grass.  He reached down and picked one piece of grass and brought it to his lips.  A shrill whistle went forth.

She thought about the people living in the houses below, imagined they belonged to the students and their families, and of course, to the other teachers.  She wondered how many of them had ever been on the hill, and she too picked a particularly bright green leaf of grass.  They were so safe and secure down there, so acceptable.  She could imagine the kids in the alternative school, marching up this hill single file, the girls either squealing about their "heels" sinking into the ground, or else making silly jokes about the peanut butter sandwiches they were to eat at the top, ribbing the sandwich makers. The guys just being bored....but after school hours  was surely a different matter.  The grass blade tickled her lips and tongue vibrating its righteous defiance as she blew harder and harder.  Finally it got stuck to one side and ceased altogether.  Upon examination, the leaf had frayed in the middle.  She let go of it as she selected another piece.

This one was a center blade, still twirled and tender.  She pulled it upwards slowly and firmly until it released. The end was a pale celery color and she put it in her mouth and chewed upon its small flesh.  Yes, they had rejected her...it seemed ironic just now, looking out over their homes and stores.  She could even make out the school she thought ...not the kids, of course, but they were kids after all, which was itself an impasse.

He started walking again; she followed along behind him. She would have enjoyed being a dog just then so she could nip at the rolled up cuffs of the man's trousers.  It was a floating thought.  And then a dog, a real dog, did appear!  It was a large blond dog with a broad face and a fat slow wagging tail. It sauntered on ahead of them, lifted its leg just to the side of the path and continued on its way.  She was still following the blue jeans cuffs disappearing one after the other in an uneven meter, when he stopped again.  He turned and stared directly into her face, he asked,

"Would you like to smoke some dope?"

She gazed down, considering the idea.  She didn't smoke dope usually, and with all the 'emoting', crying and all, she wasn't sure what its effect might be.  But they'd had such a jovial morning, she liked him, and too, why not?  And so she looked back up as ordinarily as she could and said, "OK."  They were four-fifths up the side of the hill and they still had a bird's eye view of  the community below even when they sat.

He brought the little sewn bag out of his pocket, it had a plastic baggy inside and some crumbled up tan leaves and dried out undeveloped flowers.  He took out a piece of creased cardboard and put a cigarette rolling paper on the cardboard.  Then he crumbled the leaves three or four times, each time gathering them all back together by tipping them out on the cardboard or else by bending the cardboard and sort of laying the leaves in a neat little row on the paper.  He had to throw one paper away, and start again.  Finally he was satisfied with his roll job and carefully holding the cigarette in both hands he brought it up to his lips, licked the edge and sealed it.  He glanced at her, smiling.  She smiled back. Then he twisted both ends, bit one off with his teeth, (his lips rearing back for the procedure) and the other end he moistened with his tongue, twirling the tiny cigarette in his fingers.

He held it in his hands for a moment, looking out over the valley,  then he drew a deep breath sniffing the bright air, exhaled slowly sighing and turned,  handing the cigarette to  her.  She put the "bit" end into her mouth and he lit the "joint" with a disposable cigarette lighter.  She puffed several small puffs, and then she inhaled a long inhale and held her breath, handing the cigarette to him.  He did the same.  She exhaled thoroughly caving in her chest and did it again.  This time it was hotter and had a meat-smoky-salt taste. Then he inhaled and inhaled again, making a noise with his nose.  Again she took the cigarette, and again passed it back to him.  When he offered it to her the next time, she shook her head, still not exhaling.  He took several more puffs, lifting it questioningly in her direction and she declined once more.  He didn't offer it to her again and eventually it went out.  He set the remaining butt on his shoe but then was dissatisfied with that arrangement and so removed it to a nearby stone.  He sat quietly with his knees up and his arms folded over them, the kite laying to his side.  She took off the backpack,  and they both had some water.

She knew she was stoned already, she felt like her body was floating around in circles, feet first -around- around- and then they'd come back through her head and down her back. -around-  but a sip of water brought her back and broke up the thick saliva that had formed in her mouth.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"  he asked, suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed.

"Yes," she  answered,  "Do you?"

"No," he said, and looked straight ahead out over the valley.

She took in this information and returned to her "stoned-ness".  She didn't think she could walk just now, but that was no difficulty since she was sitting down anyway and had no reason to get up.  She felt kind of light and cool in spots and her eyes tickled.  At last she determined that she wasn't going to be ill and began to examine the things around her.  Colors were still correct, that is they appeared the  same as usual, no strange apparitions  seemed likely to peek out from behind the trees.  The community below was even less threatening and rather a toy to look upon.  She was feeling rather proud in fact,  when he said, "Which?"

She blinked at him in amazement, he looking at her.  He had a matter of fact look on his face but immediately upon seeing her expression, his face changed to a quizzical smile. "Which do you have ...brothers or sisters?"  She looked back down utterly astonished, he wanted to know "which?", how long ago that had all been?, she  must be awfully stoned, what bright eyes he had, and, the crow's feet, she should answer him, imagine he had been sitting there all that time still thinking about brothers and sisters, he had none, "which?"

"Brothers," she said, peering into his face, he was still smiling at her, and so she went on, "Two, one older and one younger." Then she added, "One reminds me of you."  But she thought how close they were, their bodies and all, and how blue his eyes were, and how he was smiling sideways at her, and how nice it would  be if....and  then it bothered her what she had said, so she added, "Actually, you aren't anything like him." Then she was unhappy that she had been so emphatic so she made the further correction, "Well maybe, just a little bit."

He laughed and added amiably, "Good, I was worried for a minute, after all if we're both men, we have to have something in common."

She stared into his face transfixed.  He was a man.  He'd brought up the issue of "man-ness",  and suddenly, he represented ALL 'mans'.  He was Adam and she was Eve, and she felt all the "Eveie" sorts of things that Eves ever do feel. Why, instead of being thrown out of the Garden of Paradise, she was sure she had been thrown directly into it.  This was Paradise.  And he kissed her.  And they rolled over onto the tender green grass and kissed for a while.

When they sat back up, he said he wanted to take a little walk.  He must need a tree, she guessed, and she basked in the sun, looking out over the small hamlet.  The tiny cars coming and going, the even tinier dots which were people or dogs, the trees and roofs of houses.  Then she laid back on her back and looked up at the changing texture of the high wispy cirrus clouds.   She felt complete and happy and safe, and she closed her eyes.  Then he was beside her again and they got up to hike back down the hill.  She was a little off kilter for a moment when she first stood up but it went away quickly with a shallow knee bend.  They hiked single file and then they crossed the parking lot together.  Now she felt invulnerable to the people all around, protected by his nearness and her current sense of belonging.

At the supermarket, there  were pickets standing near the doors with large placards saying:  UNFAIR.  She didn't read the signs.  He wanted to go in.  She hadn't crossed a picket line yet, she'd even had to change her store;...they'd been picketing all over town.  She didn't know what it was about but she was sort of afraid.  Today she wasn't afraid though, and she took a secret pleasure in walking right past the pickets and into the store.

He knew exactly what he wanted. She followed him into the vegetable section where he stopped at the mark-down table.  He lifted up several bags, deciding upon one  which had five or six bruised pears in it.  It had an orange day-glow sticker that said 27 cents.  That was all he wanted.  They waited in the 10-items-only line and again they were walking past the pickets.  At the truck he opened the bag and gave her the nicest of the pears, he took the worst for himself. With a pocketknife, he removed the bruised spots and let them fall onto the parking lot.  The pears were sweet and pleasantly gritty.   As he was eating his third pear, she noticed that he no longer had the kite.

"Where's the kite? she asked.

He smiled his smile and she knew he hadn't forgotten it.  She looked at him puzzling and he nodded his head in the direction of Red Hill.  She continued to wait for a more definite response but when none was forthcoming, she turned and looked toward Red  Hill.  High over the hill was a bright red kite with a long series of white flutters following after it. She wondered who was flying it, they had been the only ones there, she thought.

"Whose flying it?"

"No," he said,  "I tied it to a tree."  Then he added, "I don't know how long it will stay up," and again he smiled his rye smile.  She marveled at him all anew and turned to watch the kite.  It sailed splendidly, darting back and forth, way up there, high over Red Hill.  All alone.  Its movements were fairly even.  She wondered at it, at him, thinking how he had excused himself to fly a kite, not to pee,  but to fly a kite. He'd left it tied to a tree, what if she hadn't asked about it?.... Then he said, "Let's go,"  and they got into the truck and drove back to her apartment.