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Documente Cultură
Impulse
Eagle Lake
I was moving to Eagle Lake, California, on April 2, 2005, the day Pope John Paul
died. Driving the U-Haul down 80 South, I was stuck in traffic when talk radio broke the
news. Programs were preempted in honor of the pope, and the media rode the story as a
surfer would a wave. They did much the same the week before, when Terry Schiavo was
starved to death, and W—who as governor of Texas had executed dozens of inmates,
some innocent, some retarded, and was responsible for countless dead Iraqis— said, “It’s
Before the demise of John Paul and Terry, there was the tsunami—an apocalyptic
dance of death, soon replaced with the war in Iraq—the one the media could do nothing
to cover because American TV reporters were too scared to step outside their hotel
rooms, and the only way you could find out what was happening was by watching Al
Jazeera. The war that had claimed, and continued to claim, many lives—gallant, precious
lives snuffed out by deranged ignorant leaders—was ruthlessly being tucked away.
That was the reality of my American Dream as I drove into Eagle Lake. My name
is Ted Cole. There was a time in my life, forty years ago, when I was called Theodore,
but as a teenager, I opted for Ted—a single, unassuming syllable, and thus it remained.
trying to escape my Jewish heritage. So, Theodore Kolinovich, became Ted Cole. As my
uncle Misha would say, “You object? Sue me! See if I care!”
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I don’t pass for a Jew. I could stand in a tobacco field in Kentucky and look
Southern as can be. I have sandy blonde hair (though now hopelessly thinning and
flecked with gray), blue eyes, a small nose, and I stand five-feet-eleven-and-a-half inches
tall.
That half inch has been a sore point. When filling out forms, I could state I was
five-feet-eleven, but that would be untrue, as untrue as saying I was six feet—a towering
own version of erring on the side of life, and have been parading myself as six feet.
After celebrating the sixties in all their glory and disdain, and holding hope when
Jimmy Carter came to office, only to settle into the Reagan Era, I sensed my need to
conform, and decided to become an elementary school teacher. Though I have none to
follow from my seed, I’ve always loved children and their ability to soak up knowledge
I received my degree in 1980 when I was thirty and, for the last twenty-five years,
have been part of the educational establishment. California came to be my mainstay ten
years ago. I taught in San Diego for three years, and then in Santa Rosa, but I became
restless both times and am still looking for the one place I can call home.
When it comes to teaching, I have learned to contain my hatred for the stifling
curriculum. I search and yearn for the moments when I clarify something for a child and
the look in that child’s eye is wise, but many days, I lecture about one silly holiday or
misinformed historical event, my words not even skimming the surface of logic.
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My Uncle Misha would wave me off as a self-indulgent romantic. He’s been dead
a long time—I find it difficult to accept how long, for it means that I’ve lived long
enough to remember him. He was a tart man, but not without grace. As a survivor of
Auschwitz, Misha carried a huge ax to grind and would let it fall with a massive thud.
He mocked me with his staccato, sneering laugh. “You wanna know bad? I’ll tell
you bad!” I was ten when he first said that, and I grinned nervously.
He described the concentration camp showers. “But instead of water, poison gas
came pouring out, and everybody choked to death, and my job was to load the corpses
onto carts and throw them into the ovens. And if that stench didn’t pry open the gates of
continued, “So don’t you whine to me about when you don’t get enough chocolate or
want another toy, or I will kill you and bury you in a remote field!”
Then he laughed and hugged me. I was horrified, but I also loved him.
Misha boycotted my Bar Mitzvah; when I saw him next, he took me aside and
said, “When I didn’t come to your Bar Mitzvah, it wasn’t because I don’t love you.”
He shrugged and ruffled my hair. By then, I was taller than he was. Three months
I think Uncle Misha had lost, or never had, any belief in a manmade god, one
promoted by organized religion. He was upset for being fingered as a Jew. He would have
preferred it if the Jews had abandoned their annoying insistence on being the chosen
people and had assimilated into the Roman culture that had enslaved them. Misha carried
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the weight of 2,000 years of diaspora by working the Nazi ovens. It upset him to be
and resist displaying my cultural heritage. I have become a cultural pariah. I believe in no
Thus, while driving to Eagle Lake on Hwy 80, I became annoyed with the
adulation heaped upon the newly dead pope—a man who believed that homosexuality
and masturbation were sins, while many of his clergy molested boys without
consequence. If one abandons, just for one holy minute, the notion that John Paul was
closer to divinity than other men, one cannot but be horrified and dismayed both by the
utter ignorance and superstition used by the church, and by the human toll it has extracted
Some people find these views disturbing. I’ve learned to contain my outbursts of
righteousness to few occasions, for they serve not in changing minds, be they mine or my
Empire—home to twenty-million residents and growing. There once was a lake in Eagle
Lake, but, by 1950, it had dried up, was filled with earth, and now supports three hundred
condominiums. The town, established by Quakers in the late 1890s, is off the 605
Freeway, between the towns of Norwalk and Whittier. Aside from the flatlands of the
former lake, Eagle Lake also has rolling hills and windy streets draped with greenery and
Colonial-style homes.
The one-bedroom apartment I was moving into was at 3250 Lake Avenue—
halfway up into the hills and in historical uptown Eagle Lake. A trendy area cultivated by
parlors, a post office, several banks, and various other businesses all within walking
distance.
I was greeted by the manager, Suzan, a plump brunette in her thirties. We climbed
seventeen steps and she opened the door to a spotless, airy, well-lit apartment.
“It gets a little stuffy in the summer. Let me know if the AC is weak.”
She handed me the keys and wandered off, and I unpacked the U-Haul. If I could
brag about anything in my life, I would quote my friend Danny Goldblum—a clarinet
player who once, over breakfast, said, “You know what you are? You’re an anti-hoarder.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, so Danny elaborated. “Some people are hoarders,
saving trinkets to give meaning to their lives. You get rid of them. You’re a minimalist.”
That was in Santa Rosa, three years ago, and I took his advice. Since I’ll never be
able to afford a house and am content in a one bedroom, I bought furniture to grace a 15-
by-12 living room—a black leather couch that opened to a bed, two wicker chairs
cushioned by black pillows embroidered with purple circles and blue triangles, a
Maplewood coffee table with a glass surface, and a beige entertainment center that
housed a stereo and a 25-inch TV. For the bedroom, I had a queen-size bed with a natural
I never keep more than a suitcase full of clothes. In the spring, when winter garb
is on sale, I go shopping. Upon my return home, I pack my old wardrobe in plastic bags
and take them to the local Salvation Army. The annual ritual is comforting, and my
clothing expenses boil down to about a dollar a day—a soothing figure for a minimalist.
Along with my furniture and clothes, I unpacked two other boxes. One had
bedroom and bathroom essentials, and the other had kitchen stuff. Thus, it took me but an
hour (with the help of a passing teenager who earned 20 dollars) to unload the U-Haul,
and another hour to set up the apartment. By nine o’clock that night, I was sitting in my
new living room listening to Ummagumma and sipping beer. By ten o’clock, I was pretty
burnt. I drifted off after reading a page from the Emerson essay Circles.
* * *
Taking on a teaching job in the third semester of a school year is unusual, but I
was about to do so, due to the fact that second grade students in room fifteen at Jefferson
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Elementary had recently witnessed a disturbing sight when Mr. Harris, forty-six, while
lecturing about one subject or another, collapsed to the floor with a loud thud and expired
I had been on sabbatical, living in Sebastopol, an once hippie hangout now selling
track homes for a million bucks. It was my first sabbatical after twenty-five years of
teaching, and I was contemplating where to move to the coming school year when the
phone call from Jefferson Elementary came, and I found it to be fortuitous. I discussed
the offer with Julia Morris, the principal, and decided to take the job.
Thus, I walked to work on Monday, April 4, following spring break. The school
was about a mile from my apartment—a tempered uphill stroll through streets with old
Victorians and well-tended landscapes. A casual prosperity hung in the air. Also, on the
Blended into the hill, Jefferson Elementary was a small school—K through fifth
grade, about four hundred students in all. Two stone staircases fifty feet apart climbed up
from the street and curved inward to meet at the entrance—a narrow door that held two
students at a time. A short hallway led to a narrow yard with a dozen classrooms facing
each other and separated by a grass path. A staircase rose from the yard to a field tucked
into the top of the hill, with a playground, and trees and grass, and ladybugs flying about.
The playground had the rubber surface that protects from severe falls, and to which all
Julia Morris was a morbidly obese woman filled with sweet energy. Reddish hair
cut below her ears, her blue eyes sparked with intelligence. We sat in her office, and I
She sighed and shook her head. “It was a most difficult day in my professional
life. The poor children knew not what to think or do, and I too was left bereft of
answers.”
“It must have been rough,” I said, and wondered if Julia always spoke in such
proper English free of the nauseating dialect American language had become.
“Indeed, it was,” she said, “but you shan’t be teaching that class, as the vacancy
was filled by Mrs. Taylor, a maternal figure familiar with the traumatized children who
I nodded. “Of course. It’s an epicenter I’d rather avoid unless no other options
remained.”
Julia stood up. She had an enormous behind, maybe the largest I’d ever seen. In
the USA circa 2005, such a statement should not be taken lightly.
“You’ll instead be teaching the second graders in room ten,” she said. I followed
her into the courtyard and up to a blue door. Through the window, teacher and students
“Hello, Ms. Jones,” the principal addressed the teacher and then the class, “Good
morning, children.”
“I’d like you to meet Mr. Cole, your new teacher,” she said. Twenty-seven
students shifted their eyes to stare at me and not with great favor, I suspect, as I looked
old to them.
They sat six to a rectangular table, tiny chairs mesmerizing in their cuteness. I
any intelligent seven year old, and smiled at the substitute teacher, Ms. Jones, an
attractive twenty-something blonde who ignored me. Then I returned to stand by the
principal who said, “Mr. Cole will start tomorrow, but he wanted to come and say hello.”
“Tomorrow it is,” I said as we arrived back at her office. I reached out to shake
her chubby hand. “I like the school. I’m going to enjoy teaching here.”
“We would appreciate that,” she said warmly, when a man came up to the open
door and rapped his knuckles on the partition. About forty, he was short and thin and had
clear brown eyes; his hair was vibrant black; only his sideburns revealed flecks of gray.
“Nice to meet you. Call me Paul,” he said in a soft voice, though his grip was
sharp.
Paul Sudick shook his head. “What a tragedy,” he said. I echoed his concern.
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Then he said, “Welcome to Jefferson Elementary. God bless,” and walked off.
“Sounds like a date to me,” I said, and walked out. I was upset about showing up
to work and then being sent home. I’d already mustered the energy to take on the youths
but was now set loose to explore the day in ways I hadn’t intended.
I walked home, and passed the three churches. The First Methodist Church of
Eagle Lake was housed in a large stone building and had a bell tower. It chimed the Big
Ben melody and then rang loudly nine times, metallic overtones somewhat pleasing. The
second church was First Friends, a Quaker congregation, and the third was Saint Matteus
Episcopalian Church, also housing a bell tower, if a modest one that remained silent as I
walked by.
My new apartment greeted me with tidy silence. The view from the window
showed the street below—a mother pushing a stroller, a pair of teenagers on skateboards,
a finely mowed lawn with pink and red rosebushes at its corners. A breeze coming off the
The news headlines continued their insatiable thirst for events necrophilia. In
response to the Terry Schiavo case, a new Web site sprang into action. Ringing medieval
as the bells from the Methodist church, the Web site, sponsored by the Judeo-Christian
Council for Constitutional Restoration, advocated against gay marriage and abortion. It
demanded that God remain part of the pledge of allegiance and promoted school prayer
The phonetic similarity of Judeo and Judicial had never before caught my ear, and
I wondered whether it was by chance, when Uncle Misha intervened. “Who was there
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first to claim knowledge of a monotheistic god? The Jews! Who invented the story of
Genesis? The Jews! Who is making more waves in the world—though counting for only
0.004 of the world’s population? The Jews!” He was grinding his teeth with rage; the
Anxious, I rose from the table. Wanting to love the spring before me, I drove
around—up and down hilly roads, past homes lush with comfort—when I came to an
intersection with a Trader Joe’s and decided to stock the empty refrigerator in my
apartment.
finding comfort in being greeted by shelves with familiar staples. My friend Danny, the
“What do you mean?” I was slightly offended while carefully fishing the
“Why are you doing this?” he asked and pointed to the discarded mushrooms.
“What’s not to like?” He bit on a slice, then chewed and shrugged, “Tastes fine to
me.”
I had decided, long before, that mushrooms were superfluous to one’s diet, but
was reluctant to admit that indeed I feared them, as I feared clams, oysters, various dips
and sauces, any meat that was undercooked, and many other food products.
Danny, who was content eating the cuisine of sidewalk vendors in Jakarta, raised
his arms in resignation. “It’s fine by me, but you’re missing out.”
I filled my cart with tasty, nourishing, and safe selections, and was observing the
store while standing at the checkout counter, when my eyes came to rest on the counter
adjacent to mine, and where an attractive middle-aged woman—blonde and wearing a red
T shirt—was smiling at me. I blushed. The concept of flirting and, more so, of being
desired, had long been tucked away in my heart, which had suffered its fair share of
aching.
But she smiled, so I smiled back. Pushing her cart, she started to walk out. She
had a sensual stride. As she walked by me, she said, “I’ll wait for you outside.”
I mumbled, “Okay,” and busied myself helping the clerk pack the groceries.
“I’m Ted,” I said and shook her hand. Her fingers were soft and dainty.
I volunteered to push the cart. Rachel said she represented a company selling
garden tools, and I admitted to being a new teacher at Jefferson Elementary, to which
“Pearl.”
“Nice name.”
We loaded the groceries into the car. Rachel gave me her card and asked me to
call on her. Casually, I said I would. She drove off waving goodbye, and I was cast into a
* * *
At 7:45 the next morning, I walked to the school and passed the Methodist
Church when the bells chimed eight. A stream of children and parents scaled up the hill;
cars came and went in quick succession—dropping students and zipping off.
We gathered on the field above the classrooms, twenty rows of children led by
their teachers. My future students grinned at me, so I smiled sweetly and patted a few
The principal, Julia, wearing a purple dress, came up to the microphone and
“Let us say the pledge of allegiance,” she then said. “If you are wearing a hat,
please remove it, and place your right hand over your heart.”
Even though I’d been privy to the ludicrous custom for twenty-five years, I still
cringed with anger as I watched the innocent mass comply. I refused to speak the toxic
words adulating religion and nationalism, and watched my class recite what they didn’t
understand. Some of my students stared at me and widened their eyes. Also staring at me
was Paul Sudick, reciting the pledge, voice booming, eyes dark with contempt.
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I had met a relentless enemy. I felt my sweaty palms and stared off at the hill.
The pledge complete, Julia Morris then asked the students to recite the Peace
Builder Pledge, which I found agreeable—the context centered on following the Golden
Then Julia Morris said a prayer—one praising Jesus and the Immaculate
Conception, and concluded by making the sign of the cross. The children followed.
My blood ran cold. What was happening? There’s no prayer allowed in California
public schools. I wanted to scream, “What’s going on here?” but clenched my fists,
fingernails plowing into my palms. My stomach gurgled sourly; I felt the bile rise in my
throat. About to heave, my impulse to do so was preempted by Uncle Misha who rushed
to my side and grabbed my wrist. “Stop your whining. Don’t be devoured by their evil, or
Misha cackled receding gums. “Why do you listen to me? What do I know? God
ordered me to save my life by carting corpses from the showers to the incinerator. Why
The compliant herd descended the stairs and dispersed to classrooms. I lead my
students to room ten where, aware of my agony, they sat in their chairs and awaited my
command.
Trying to quiet my thoughts, I read and memorized the names off the chart.
I smiled and said, “I met your grandma Rachel at the store yesterday. When you
“She’s old.”
“But she is still beautiful,” I said and asked, “Do you think I’m old too?”
Then I said, “I’m fifty-five, and you are seven. How much is fifty-five minus
seven?”
Going home for the day, I stopped by Julia Morris’s office. The large woman sat
behind her desk and smiled sweetly at me. “How was your day, Mr. Cole? Have the
“I hope so,” I said, and then asked about the morning prayer.
She laughed. “Indeed. We are unique in our ways and filled with praise for the
Julia shrugged and widened her eyes. “What damage could possibly come to the
My shoulders sagged, when Sudick walked in. “How was your day, Ted?” His
eyes were cold. I was taller than him, but felt short and judged. “It was fine.”
I hurried down the stone staircase and walked home. The church bells thumped in
my head. I yearned for Uncle Misha’s advice, but he was nowhere to be found.
* * *
While some people who search for a constant in their drifting lives go to church or
Shul, and others bow to Mecca five times a day, so I must begin most days by exercising.
But the thought of joining a gym and running on a treadmill like a hamster in a wheel is
unacceptable to me. No doubt, I would quickly commit suicide if I were locked up in jail
Eagle Lake where I located a gem named Minnesota Park. A half-mile in circumference
of well-groomed grass with workout stations at four corners, it was endowed with maple,
pine, and oak trees, well-trimmed bushes, squirrels rushing about, and a variety of birds
and bugs. The morning sky was cushioned by thin streaks of clouds, and a warm breeze
I relaxed into a brisk walk. Then I stretched, and then jogged for thirty-five
minutes. While jogging—as I always do—I let my mind roam, but it kept returning to
John Paul, the dead pope. In 1981, he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet but forgave
him. He was also responsible in subtle ways for the demise of the USSR. He spoke eight
languages and was the first pope to admit that the church could have done more to
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prevent the Holocaust. I wondered if Uncle Misha would have been impressed by John
Paul’s conduct, but suspected he would instead lament the fact that the assassin in ’81
“John Paul was a religious radical who advocated against condoms in the age of
AIDS and against contraception when the world is bulging with far too many people,” I
heard Misha say. “Two guys who escaped death should have died. The pope and Ronald
Reagan.” He held up two bony fingers, nails chewed down to the flesh. “Instead they
were canonized, and now the church is strong and the Republicans rule. Not good, if you
ask me.”
I also found Reagan to be a callous, indifferent man, though Jack Straw disagreed
with me. He was a teacher in the Santa Rosa school I had taught in at the time Reagan
died. Jack Straw drove to Los Angeles and stood in line to bid farewell to the man he had
Upon his return, we crossed paths in the teachers’ lounge, when he mentioned his
pilgrimage.
I shrugged and lied. “He kept his fingers off the red button, and that’s good
“He brought down the Berlin Wall,” Jack said and sipped his coffee.
Now that is a historically wrong statement. Few care to follow the timeline of the
Soviet Union’s demise, which, although it did occur while Reagan quipped his famous
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line, “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall,” had nothing to do with his speech, and would
So I lay into him—the only time in ten years that I opened my big mouth. I called
him a corporate pig, and he said I was a commi-liberal. Finally, I caught my breath and
After the morning jog, I returned to my apartment and relaxed into bathroom
discipline that seeks to unify several empirical investigations of human nature in an effort
to understand individuals as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own
values.
Human nature is as vast as the cosmos. And though agreements exist over some
phenomena related to man’s nature, disagreements exist over many others, which to me is
proof that human nature will never be deciphered beyond the obvious: man is selfish,
greedy, manipulative, cruel, creative, altruistic, loving and, more than anything, prone to
And when pertaining to the vastness of the cosmos, I have recently come to an
And though I’m in a minority because of my views, I’m glad to know I’m not
alone. Critical minds from the fields of physics, astronomy, cosmology, philosophy,
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literature, and even religion—though their loyalty is misplaced, have come to similar
conclusions.
The astounding fact about my finding, aside from its metaphysical implications, is
proof of how rigid science can be within its dogma, how much it’s like politics and
theology—arriving at a set of assumptions only to insist they are facts, and then
expounding on their wrong theories and creating a domino effect of lies and rules that
The truth I have uncovered is that the big bang theory is utter and complete
The first accepted cosmic theory of Western Civilization was the Ptolemaic: The
earth is the stationary center of the universe, and the heavens remain unchanged. The
Indians believed in cyclic rebirth, and the Chinese believed in the Cosmic Egg theory.
The Jews insisted it took only six days—a concept adapted by Christianity—and
scholar who had suggested a timeless, infinite universe. Nicholas was a peculiar fellow: A
incomplete nature of man’s knowledge of God and the universe. He stated those views to
suggesting the theological council should have the authority to override the papacy on
certain issues, thus implying an intimacy with God that was unacceptable. The drifting
papacy solidified its ranks and, after condemning the council’s audacity, offered the
heretics an honorable return to the fold—the one insisting the earth was flat.
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Sensing the infinite, timeless universe teetering on his own very finite existence,
Nicholas of Cusa joined with the rank and file and rejoined the Flat Earth Society. He
shouldn’t have been scorned for his choice, as he too needed to obey the amoebic impulse
heavens that didn’t center on Earth. And the proof came and, with it, centuries of science
But where and when did the universe begin? Or does it ever begin?
In 1947, after the Manhattan Project unified atomic energy into mushroom clouds
over Hiroshima and Nagasaki—another huge nail in the coffin of obtuse humanity—these
second, fifteen billion years ago in a place far, far away—an amazing display of energy
that, concentrated in the size of one single atom, once, and only once, produced what
The premise promised plenty of time remained for the human race to endow or
destroy, but mentioned in passing, a mournful quality attached, that the universe was
accelerating, and that, in about ten billion years, all that would be left would be cold,
With that conclusion, the universe was again reduced to man’s pathetic
perceptions of time and space: it started back then, and will end soon, and God is dead.
“Not so fast,” the church pined “You’re saying that everything was created in one
moment, in one profound flash of light. Well, it so happens that the Book of Genesis says
science— unlike the time when Nicholas had to rescind his academics—have arrived at a
And thus, the message from Anaxagoras via Nicholas of Cusa was once again
lost.
But as Darwin said, “I don’t expect my peers who have been fighting for their
cause to accept my premise. I believe the young who rise to evaluate my work better
and the finite cold abyss described by Big Bang theorists, I choose the former. It makes
more sense.
It’s also safe to conclude that all participants in the above stated drama of thought
and action, me included, were creatures of their environment and creators of their own
Content with solving the riddles of the universe, I watched the sphinx plunge into
the abyss. Then, in boldly uncharacteristic fashion, I dialed Rachel’s number. She
answered, warm sensual voice seemingly delighted to hear mine. Then she mentioned the
“But we should go,” she purred. “It would be a good way for you to meet the
“How come?”
“It’s a language spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe, a dialect mixing German and
Hebrew.”
A short silence followed my statement, after which Rachel asked, “Are you
Jewish?”
“Not in practice.”
“What?”
“But I believe in a woman’s right to choose, and I’m against the death penalty.”
“Do you mind that I’m of Jewish heritage?” I stubbornly held to my religious
ambiguity.
“Why would I mind? Jews are God’s chosen people,” Rachel said and almost
Rachel arrived in a white cotton dress that hugged her soft curves. Her blonde hair
cascaded in curls; her gentle blue eyes sparkled with sexy playfulness. She hugged me,
her ample breasts pressed against my chest, and then she pecked my cheek, her breath
sweet with gentle perfume. She looked much younger than her fifty years.
We strolled through uptown, toward a corner café with sidewalk tables, gliding
across the sidewalks, our steps in unison, and I knew I was never more attracted to a
The blintzes, filled with finely sliced strawberries and bananas, and garnished
with sour cream, combined with chocolate milkshakes to sooth our taste buds, and our
“I don’t think there are any Jews in Eagle Lake,” Rachel said.
“I don’t believe in religion,” I said, enunciating the last word in three syllables.
“I don’t believe it is. I think the biblical god was created by man,” I said and
“Any children?”
“Just my daughter, Pearl’s mother. But she isn’t married,” Rachel said and smiled
with apology.
I retreated in my chair.
Then we stood on the corner and watched the parade. Children twirling batons
marched proudly while brass bands played in a clutter of trombones and kettle drums.
Dignitaries from the municipality rode in white Cadillac convertibles, and police officers
on horseback were greeted loudly by the spectators who took special joy when one of the
Then Rachel held my hand. I pretended to continue watching a float with high
school cheerleaders. Our fingers entwined all afternoon, by the time we got back to my
“No doubt we will, but I can’t.” Rachel caressed my cheek. “I don’t believe in sex
“It’s been that long, but it’s worth the wait, I hope.” Rachel leaned in and her lips
parted to cradle mine. I melted into her lips—the best kiss of my life, and when we
“Think about it,” she smiled and walked off, turning to wave and say, “Call me
soon.”
* * *
the school morning prayer, but nonetheless found myself in a state of panic. Passing the
Methodist church on the way to school, I was leery of the bell tower.
I escaped to class and taught, and was relieved to find out that the children
approved of me. Julia, the principal I’d grown to respect, attested to that with her wealthy
smile. I was confused about the liberty she took in doing the morning prayer, and why it
was not challenged by the educational authorities, but when we crossed paths, her smile
assured me all was well. But all was not well, though I didn’t know why.
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Paul Sudick avoided me, and I avoided him. The rest of the staff was a blur of
While I jogged in Minnesota Park, vans pulled up to the curb and unloaded
retarded people who sat around the picnic tables. Their confused eyes watched me jog by.
It seemed the town was bent upon assisting the weak, the unfortunate, and yet….there
One was short and bald, with a gray scraggly beard and a droopy face. His hands
shook when he gave me change, and when he walked, always puffing on a cigarette, he
His associate was tall and bald, and wore jeans with suspenders pulled up to his
chest. The jeans earned him the nickname, Hotpants. His light-blue loomed apologetic
through thick-lenses. Night after night, I came up to the checkout counter with a six-pack
and, every time, Hotpants asked, speech slow and slurred, “Is this it?”
Finding myself unusually irate, every night I wanted to scream, “Hey Dickbrain!
This is it!” But I didn’t, as Hotpants seemed innocent in his need to know. So I grumbled
yes, and he rang the cash and packed the beer. As I walked out, Hotpants returned to
wiping down dusty wine bottles, his hands cradling the damp rag. In slow motion, he
Much of the population seemed disadvantaged in one way or another, and many
were morbidly obese. They walked by, eyes cast to the ground, and never did I see
anyone smile.
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Meanwhile, church bells never far away chimed people to prayer and devotion to
the Lord. Reviewing the phone book, I counted forty-seven churches advertising their
services.
On Saturday, Rachel and I met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant tucked away
behind the movie theater. She wore black jeans and a red T-shirt, hair tucked in a
“I see. . . . ”
“What’s wrong, Ted? You seem distracted.” Rachel reached across the table and
caressed my fingers.
“How so?”
I told her about the people I’d seen walking the streets and how no one smiled.
“It’s like they’re catatonic. And I’ve never seen more retarded, crippled, and obese people
in my life.”
“We do have many disadvantaged people in Eagle Lake,” Rachel said. “But it’s
because God has sent them here—where they can be protected.” Then she laughed, “Pearl
“She’s the smartest of the bunch,” I said, and then asked, “How come they have
school prayer?”
28
I huffed. “I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me. He’s weird.”
I frowned. “And what’s that ‘God bless’ crap he says every time he leaves? What
Enchiladas were served, but I suddenly wasn’t hungry. The beautiful woman
across from me was far removed from my sensibilities. “Why don’t you marry him?” I
said.
“That’s not nice of you to say.” Rachel frowned and dimmed the sparkle in her
blue eyes.
“Ted, darling,” Rachel softly said and caressed my palm. “Why are you doing
How was I going to explain Uncle Misha’s endless morass, which continued to
haunt me? How does one negate the faith of another? Then I spoke heresy: “I don’t like
religion, and I don’t like people who insist they know God better than others.”
Rachel was quiet while we ate. It was a sad, uncomfortable silence, one that
denied me the only person in town I cared for. But in my heart of hearts, I knew our
romance couldn’t work. How could I embrace her, knowing she prays to a false god?
“Spare me the prayer—” I said, but she ignored me, “You are an angry man, Ted
Cole, but I see the beauty in your soul. One day you’ll trust me enough to join me in
prayer.”
We left the restaurant and stood silently on the street. Then Rachel pecked my
living room. A musky scent permeated the room, one I could not place. I ran down the
stairs and knocked on the manager’s door. To my inquiry, Suzan said that neither she nor
any maintenance or utility person had entered my apartment. I believed her and ran back
up the stairs. The scent still lingered but was quickly dissipating by the breeze swirling
I checked my journal to discover that the single hair I always put under its front
cover was gone. I walked throughout the apartment, like a nervous doe smelling for
I rushed to the drugstore and clandestinely opened every kind of cologne and
aftershave available on the shelves, but could not identify the scent in any of them.
pack my bags and escape town, but instead walked to the liquor store, where bought a
* * *
Three weeks since becoming the teacher of room ten, my reality obscured by
anger and fear, my romance with Rachel but a memory, I was rescued daily by questions
put to me by my students–a reflective and critical crowd, and their leader was Pearl—an
inquisitive and generous child. But even that sanctuary didn’t last much longer.
Rachel reincarnated in her eyes, I was offended by her suspicious tone of voice. I
bitterly recalled the demise of my love for her grandmother, and said, “Jesus was a good
man, I think. But now, people are using his message to hurt other people.”
The class settled into a dissatisfied murmur, but I continued, “It’s all lies!
Everything is lies! None of these people who tell you to pray has a clue of what’s really
happening!” My anger rose and I was about to bellow my discontent, when Misha
grabbed my wrist. “What are you doing? You’re scaring the poor children.”
I bit my lip and turned to Pearl. “Maybe it’s a subject we can discuss in history
class.”
Grateful for the line cast to rescue me, I began a discussion about history, but like
a drowning man clutching straws, I felt the ground slipping away beneath my feet.
31
After the children had gone home, I retired to the teacher’s lounge where, in
solitude, I sat at a table, sipped a cup of coffee, and read the L.A. Times. On its front page
was a huge photo of the new pope—Cardinal Ratzinger, the first German to claim the
papacy since the eleventh century, and whose name as the 265th pope was to be Benedict
XVI.
women becoming priests. As a teenager, in Nazi Germany, he joined the Hitler Youth
movement, one that was not compulsory. Dark as the darkest ages, he claimed in writing
that Roman Catholicism was superior to other religions. It was easy to picture him sitting
on Torquemada’s throne and casting men women and children into dark, damp dungeons
where squeaking rats and two-inch cockroaches thrived, and where the innocent
Misha came to stand over me, his brown, tragic eyes narrowed at the photograph.
Then he lunged at the page and screamed, “Let me at this Nazi rat!”
I tried to pry the newspaper out of his trembling hands, but his grip was powerful
and his long bony fingers ripped the pages to shreds that fell to the floor.
“What are you doing?” Paul Sudick stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed at the
torn pages littering the floor. God Bless bent down to pick up the pieces, when he
recognized the mutilated photograph. His eyes darkened with rage. “What the hell is
I swallowed hard and was about to walk out, when the scent that had violated my
He looked up defiantly and calmly said, “You’re out of your mind,” but I could
“I can smell your cologne, it’s the same one. How dare you invade my home?”
We continued screaming at each other and would have come to blows were it not
for Julia Morris who came rushing in. “What on God’s good earth is taking place here?”
Respectful of her dimensions, Sudick and I backed off. I had never been angrier
and more scared in my life. My heart threatened to leap out of my chest. I grabbed my
bag and stormed out, down the stone stairway to the street below, where I took off
In great need to escape Eagle Lake, I was packing when the phone rang. I decided
to let the machine answer, but when Rachel’s sensual voice filled the air, I took the call.
“What? But why? Pearl is so impressed with you, and the other kids are too. Why
“This place is weird. It’s too religious, and they say prayers in school, and there
“Calm down, Ted, please. Don’t leave. You’re a nice man, and you have a good
heart. Can I please come over? We can have coffee and talk.” Her silky voice reminded
me of her soft lips and the best kiss I’d ever had.
Three hours later, after Rachel had arrived, and after we had coffee and talked,
and after we kissed, and after we made passionate love, we were resting in bed, when her
warm hand caressed me and aroused me once again. I was lying on my back. Rachel
mounted me. Her soft thighs squeezed my hips. Submerged in passion, I yearned to kiss
her when I saw the red tinge in her eyes. Her lips curled up to show the fangs of a
vampire. Rachel recognized my fear and quickly leaned in to bite my neck, but I
“Don’t be afraid, Ted. I will satisfy you for eternity,” Rachel said in a hoarse
I grabbed my laptop and lunged at her. She raised her arms to fend me off but I hit
her across the forehead. A gash squirted blood. Rachel collapsed on the bed. I ran to the
kitchen and returned with a big cutting knife that I lunged repeatedly into her chest and
stomach. Rachel was dead and the bed was soaked with blood when I cut through bone,
dismembering her arms and legs and then decapitating her. All the while, I growled,
Misha beside me snickering with deranged joy. “Kill them all. Kill them all!”
34
Rachel’s body lay carved up on the bed. The walls and carpets were stained with
blood and peeling flesh. The stench was hideous. I heaved. Then I was calm.
I showered, changed my clothes, and went to the store where I bought black
plastic bags. I returned to the apartment and stuffed the body parts into the plastic bags.
I carted the bags to my car and put them in the trunk. I decided to dump Rachel’s
body in the hills north of Eagle Lake and then go back to the apartment where I would
tear out the rugs and wipe down the walls. Then, I’d leave town, never to be seen again.
It was now clear to me that meeting Rachel at the store was planned, and that she
worked in cahoots with God Bless. Knowing I was about to leave town, she was ordered
to stop me. They assumed that I’d be tempered by her passion, that I’d stay and be lulled
into submission, conversion, and cavorting with the devil. But I was smarter and more
It was almost midnight. I was driving on the freeway when the highway patrol
came up behind me, lights flashing with impatient authority. Resigned to my fate, I pulled
over.
The policeman came up to my window, shone his flashlight in my face, and said,
“Sir, please step out of the car.” The officer was now tense and suspicious.
35
I stood docile as he searched me. Then he opened the trunk and shone his
Waiting for the officer to gasp, I held my breath and shut my eyes, but he ignored
the plastic bags dripping blood. He shut the trunk and asked who I was.
The officer searched his database and then testily inquired, “Where do you live,
Mr. Cole?”
“Eagle Lake.”
“I beg your pardon, officer. Eagle Lake is off the 605 freeway, between Whittier
and Norwalk—”
“No, it’s not, and you’re driving a stolen vehicle, so shut the fuck up. You’re
“That’s ridiculous,” I cried. “I’ve had this car for ten years, and I’ve done no
wrong.”
“The car is registered to Janice Cohen,” the cop said, “and you’re under arrest for
I didn’t resist being handcuffed and placed in the back seat of the squad car.
Somehow subdued within the panic, I spent the night in the Whittier County jail.
Come morning, I was eating breakfast when a stout, frizzy-haired woman with
blue and happy eyes entered my cell and said, “Hello, Theodore. How are you?”
The Asylum
Dr. Cohen pulled up the one chair in the cell and joined me. I sat on the bunk,
She crinkled her forehead. “Don’t eat that,” and emptied her bag—pistachio nuts,
I devoured a dozen wafers. They tasted familiar. Then I drank carrot juice and
Dr Cohen was also enjoying the nuts and asked, “Who am I?”
Feeling at ease in her presence, I told Janice about Eagle Lake and all the
Janice sipped on the carrot juice, ate a wafer, and then asked, “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
The stout woman pushed back her chair. She came to stand by the tiny window
that opened to a neon-lit corridor, and asked, “Why are you here?”
“The car you did steal,” Janice said, “but you didn’t kill anyone.”
I covered my head with my arms and pulled on the sparse hair on my scalp, and
when I caught my breath, she sternly said, “You didn’t kill anyone. Why do you think
“I don’t know,” I groaned and lay on my bunk. The room swirled around me and I
Dr. Cohen leaned in and wiped my sweaty brow. “You hurt no one, Theodore. You
I wept in relief. “You’re right. The officers found nothing, and now I am here.
What happened?”
“You escaped.”
Janice then paced the cell and explained that my name was indeed Theodore
Kolinovich, but that Ted Cole was a figment of my tortured imagination, as was the
whole event of Eagle Lake. She calmly insisted that, over the last thirty years, the years I
believed I was a school teacher, I had really been a resident in a psychiatric hospital.
I suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia, Janice said, which I had contracted
when I was a young man. I have been locked away since then. I was given electro-
alleviating my condition.
“But two years ago,” the doctor said and stopped pacing, “we started working
with a new drug that did wonders for you. I was able to release you from solitary and
return you to the general population. You were even participating in group discussions.”
Dr. Cohen sat in the chair and shrugged. “I’m not sure. It seems that, quite
suddenly, the medication stopped working. . . .” Her eyes hardened and she fired, “Did
Seeing the lost expression in my eyes, Janice lowered her voice and said, “Since
you were doing so well, we let you walk the hospital grounds on your own. I guess you
figured a way to scale the fence and steal my car—which you knew I don’t lock, and that
I leave the keys in the glove compartment because I don’t carry a purse.”
“Three days.”
I sat up and cried, “Three days? How’s that possible? I was in Eagle Lake for
almost a month.”
“Calm down, Theodore,” Janice said and explained that I’d suffered an acute
attack that resulted in hallucinations that stretch time longer than it really is. “It’s like
I slumped on the bed. “I can’t remember anything that happened before Eagle
Lake.”
“That’s to be expected,” Janice said gently. “Once back at the hospital, the
“No. Uncle Misha is part of your real past. He died when you were fourteen.”
I was greatly relieved. I so wanted Misha to be real. I so loved his bony fingers
curled with anger, his bushy eyebrows converged with rage, his tenor shaking with
profound authority—judging the human race for each and every evil act committed.
39
But he wasn’t inside my head anymore and, as much as I tried to recall him,
“Misha didn’t like Eagle Lake,” I told the doctor who sighed, “Misha didn’t like
I frowned. “Can you blame him? Would you survive carting corpses to the ovens
“I have no answer to that question, Theodore. But I know that his malaise left
“But I love him,” I cried. I tried to remember the rest of my family. Who were my
The woman with the frizzy hair and blue eyes sat on my bunk. She patted my
shoulder. “Come, Theodore. Let’s get you out of here and back to the hospital. It’s been a
terrifying few days for you. I promise that your memories will return and events will
clear up.”
Janice handed me a pill she fished out from her purse, “Take this. It will calm
you.”
Quickly released from custody I found myself walking with Janice toward her car
—the one I drove in Eagle Lake, the one with Rachel’s dismembered body. As we drove
away from the county jail and onto the freeway, a deep fatigue came over me….
40
The silencing of the engine woke me up. Janice smiled. “Welcome home.”
lawns, maple trees, and flower beds. I was reminded of Minnesota Park. I could easily
“I want to start jogging.” My voice filled with longing conviction, I felt a tingling
sense of self. “In Eagle Lake, I jogged every day. It felt good.”
We entered the building and I was greeted with smiles from two nurses who stood
We walked down a long corridor. Left and right were large rooms with patients
sitting at desks, playing board games. Some were clothed, others wore blue robes and
pajamas. Some watched TV and a some stood by the windows over the yard and
We then climbed stairs to the second floor where a corridor lay, this one with
individual rooms. The doors to the rooms were open, and maids were pushing trolleys
“Here we are,” Janice said as we came up to Room 32—a single bed covered with
a dark blue quilt, light green curtains drawn to let in the sun casting rays on peach-
colored walls, and two framed photos on the nightstand, Misha in one of them.
I seized the frame with shaky hands. “Misha!” I cried to the doctor standing in the
doorway.
41
The other photograph showed a man and a woman in their fifties, and a boy, about
twelve. I identified myself as the boy, but couldn’t recognize the adults, who I assumed
were my parents.
Dr. Cohen said, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve had enough for one day.”
In my room was a desk and a chair, and shelves stacked with folders and books. I
opened one of the folders, filled with fastidious notations about a wide range of topics,
“Your writings are sometimes quite poignant,” the doctor said, and I blushed with
pride. I sat on the bed, opened one of the folders, and read what I had written.
Janice Cohen stood by me and squeezed my shoulder. “I have work to do. Call the
nurse if you need anything and take your medication. Will you be okay?”
With gratitude and relief, I said, “I think I’m okay. Thanks for caring and for
saving me.”
Janice walked out to leave me sitting on my bed and reading about me:
uncommon feeling. They are easy to loath, words bubbling with doublespeak and hollow
rhetoric.
Most people find the connection between the words ‘trust’ and ‘politician’ to be
laughable at best, or outright insulting and infuriating. My disdain, however, goes far, far
deeper than any description coined by words. It’s an abyss of rage that consumes me
42
daily. Unfortunately, by nature, I am compulsive and filled with self-loathing, and that
abyss helps stoke the fires of my discontent. The more I hate, the more—like a moth to
flame—I am drawn to the calamity and hellfire that breeds within the world of politics,
And it’s not by chance that most politicians are lawyers—schooled in the art of
twisting words. Trained to lie without remorse, their heart beats calmly as it would be
they helping a blind man cross the street, which they never would unless it provided them
Laws were written by men as a way to control power and wealth, and the writers
of such laws navigate the labyrinth set up for them and them alone to take advantage of.
With forked tongues, they swim in lawless waters, pinning down anyone with moral
character.
It’s really quite a catch: if someone feels responsible for people less fortunate than
intent and truth as a beacon, he says, “Let me run for office. That way I can instigate
change, distribute funds in fair fashion, and help the common man.”
Then he enters the stagnant pool of politics and has to confess, “I want to do
good, and thus is my intent, and I will stay true to my vision but . . . if there is any chance
I will have to lie, for if I don’t, my opponent, one clearly supporting the devil’s horns,
will win, and that will do no good, no good at all. Therefore, even though I promise what
I can never keep and call my opponents by most vile of terms, I do so only for the
collective good.”
43
He joins the forces he aims to challenge, needs to debase his opponent, so not to
be shrugged off as a lesser candidate. “He’s too nice, and nice is weak.”
The herd instinct rules as the masses converge to follow the wrong leaders.
Confusing evil with strength, and lies with conviction, time and time again they fall into
And just when one nods in dismay at the lawyer-politicians, convinced human
conduct could not possibly get any worse, it does, with the advent of lawyer-politicians-
Endowed with divine conviction, they are ruthless, eyes twinkling with madness.
They have tens of thousands of huge bombs, enough bombs to destroy the planet one-
hundred fold, but they keep making more. They have a dozen Trident submarines. Each
one carries 24 nuclear missiles that, once in space, can separate and become 96 nuclear
missiles. Each missile is assigned to a target, thus, one submarine can destroy the planet.
But they have twelve. Submarines sail silently, nuclear engines for sails, thousands of
men float beneath vast oceans, traversing pole to pole. The bombs are very dangerous,
but what is more dangerous is the need to build them. They are but a manifestation of our
amoebic thrust: shaped like penises, they penetrate virgin land and wreak havoc.
I’d like to discuss the impulse that leads to the creation of the bombs, the one
that the Human Race was suffering from severe paranoid delusions.
“For after all,” the doctor would expound, tempered and bassy voice rich with
logic. “Why, as we speak, are twelve nuclear submarines traversing the ocean’s depths?”
44
The esteemed doctor would then reach for his pipe, stacked with aromatic Cuban
tobacco. He would carefully light the pipe, letting the match (he would never consider
Satisfied with the plume of bluish smoke hazily obscuring his features, he would
lean back in his chair and conclude, “Therefore, society, or mankind as a collective mind,
Proud in his statement, the analyst leans in and, with a knowing glance, eyebrows
rising, admits, “There are no sane people. We’re all hopelessly insane. . . but, that’s okay,
I shut the notepad. I felt empathy for the writer, but I also knew that I—the new
I was giggly. Maybe it was the medication, but I felt it was also because I wasn’t a
murderer. I did not kill Rachel. Whatever evil and psychosis lurked in my brain they
I walked to the three-drawer cabinet and met with a wardrobe much like the one I
had in Eagle Lake. Then I lay on my bed and watched the evening sun sparkle on the
curtains.
She was a woman in her mid-thirties, and I felt sad for her. I found her to be quite
ugly, or if ugly is too harsh a word, I could say homely. The woman looked at me, squinty
45
blue eyes hidden behind thick lenses. “Hi Theodore,” she smiled and showed yellow
She had a horse-shaped face and her pallor was deep, curly hair dry and streaked
with gray. Her bra-less breasts, like ripe melons, hung down to her stomach and swooned
as she walked. Although not obese like the people in Eagle Lake, she was fat and fit in
comfortably with the loonies and misfits I’d seen walking the streets of uptown. I could
She noticed the vacant look in my eyes and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Walking toward me, Dorothy froze in her tracks and started to cry.
A woman crying is difficult for me to watch, but I didn’t know what to do.
However crazy I might be, I decided, I’d never resort to kissing this woman.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, but I don’t remember anything. I don’t
remember ever living here, and I certainly don’t remember having a girlfriend.”
Dorothy calmed a bit and wiped her tears. “Maybe I can help you remember.
Dorothy shut her eyes and puckered her lips, but I lay on the bed and didn’t move.
“Fine,” she cried. “If you don’t believe me, ask Joey.”
“Who’s Joey?”
Still crying, Dorothy left the room, but soon returned with a lanky and bald man
in his forties. Of Italian or Spanish heritage, he had lively brown eyes. His face resembled
46
a hawk. A memory awakened, the man looked familiar. He carried a black cloth bag and
The man rolled his eyes and then opened the cloth bag and took out a chess set.
He placed it on the table and set up the pieces, at ease, like he’d done so many times.
Then he brought out a quarter, flipped it in the air, caught it, and slammed it on the table.
“Heads or tails?”
I mumbled, “Tails.”
Joey peeked under his palm and said, “Heads,” and quickly put the coin back in
his pocket. “I pick white,” he said and pushed forward a pawn. Then he looked up at me
“I don’t like to play chess.” I was troubled but also amused. Unlike with Dorothy
whose beady eyes observed the exchange, I felt relaxed with Joey.
He laughed. “Are you kiddin’ me? Stop being a yutz and play.”
So I did. I knew the rules of chess, so it wasn’t completely farfetched that I could
shuffle the pieces across the board, but I did so uninspired and quickly lost.
Joey leaned back in his chair and asked, “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Well, we know that! But what did you do for three days on the outside?”
I thought of relaying the Eagle Lake tale but knowing it was but a hallucination,
lied. “Not much. Drove around, went to the beach, got laid.”
“Got laid?” Joey cried with glee while the sobbing Dorothy ran out of the room.
“She says she’s my girlfriend,” I snapped at the hawkish man. “Is that true?”
47
“Why me?”
“Because you’re Jewish or haven’t you noticed the Mogen David on her
necklace?”
terribly—I declared, “Only my birth certificate says I’m Jewish. It was not my decision,
and I rescind the ambiguous honor of being one of the chosen ones. I want to be Ted
Cole.”
“Who the fuck is Ted Cole?” Joey asked and set up the chess pieces.
“Fine!”
A few days later, I remembered more about Joey’s identity—a staunch Roman
Catholic. In his mind, one suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (unless
taking his medication, Joey could spend hours trying to find the perfect location for salt
and pepper shakers on a dinner table), there was no doubt as to the truth behind the
bring up the subject. Then he would sigh, “Let it go, Theodore. You’re foaming at the
mouth again,” and I would quiet down and seethe through clenched teeth, “Whatever gets
Joey could make me laugh like no one else. He had an infinite supply of jokes and
powers of observation that rivaled mine, though without the cynicism. Joey was a happy
kinda guy, street smarts overlapping an analytical brain, one that played chess as
Joey was in love with Dorothy: he longed to caress her frizzy hair and dreamed
about fondling her sagging breasts. Dorothy liked Joey, but not “that way.”
She wanted to be like a sister to him, and they were good friends—he forever
ogling her breasts, and she, the princess in her ivory tower, ta-ta-ing the overzealous
pursuant. Dorothy wanted me, and only me, to touch her, had been obsessed with me for
two years, since she was admitted with multiple personality disorder aggravated by
suicidal depression.
“We’re like the three musketeers,” Joey said. “But you don’t remember?”
A week passed before it seemed normal for the three of us to meet in each others’
rooms or hang out in the recreation center, watching a movie and eating chocolate wafers
her, but she was pretty cool and careful not to flaunt her affection for me.
Dorothy was an Orthodox Jew. She spoke Hebrew and read the Old Testament.
Unlike the nonjudgmental Joey, Dorothy had no respect for other forms of worship:
49
Christianity and Islam were watered-down and dangerous versions of divinity, and
At the end of the first week back at the hospital, the memory of Eagle Lake
starting to fade, Joey and me were playing chess in his room when he said, “You know
“Bullshit! I could rock her world. It’s because I’m not Jewish.”
Joey’s hand, moving his queen, froze in midair. He looked up at me, his forehead
wrinkled with surprise. “You’re right! How come I never thought of it before?”
That night, the three of us met in Joey’s room. It was softened by candlelight and
“Because tonight is special,” the host said and offered her a chair.
Then Joey knelt on one knee before her, clasped his palms and exclaimed, “I will
“That’s not funny, Joey,” his object of desire said and turned to me. “What shall I
Like Julia the school principal from Eagle Lake, Dorothy also spoke proper
English, but sometimes her other personality, “Heather,” took over. Then she would
50
launch into the filthiest white-trash dialect and become a biker bitch. These outbursts had
tempered off with time, and Joey liked her even then.
“The man loves you,” I said. “He thinks that converting will bring him closer to
you.”
It was quiet in the room; candles flickered; the open window sounded a lonesome
cricket.
“Big deal,” Dorothy huffed, “What does Jesus know anyway? He’s a charlatan, a
“And I want to make you happy,” Dorothy said, eyes clouding with tears.
So we did. Combined with hot cocoa and a packet of wafers, it was pleasant
enough.
The evening ended without Dorothy’s consent, but neither did she oppose Joey’s
foray. Joey thought it a good sign, and the next day contacted a conservative congregation
* * *
51
Janice Cohen removed her glasses, shaped her lips into a circle and blew on the
lenses. They fogged up and she wiped them with a pink velvet cloth she took out from
her desk drawer. We were sitting in her office, rather, she was sitting, and I was lying on a
black leather couch. A Freudian analyst, Janice believed the patient more responsive
when horizontal.
“How do you feel?” She placed her glasses on the bridge of her nose, eyes
shifting to adjust.
“And how does that make you feel?” I asked and we laughed.
“I wrote a story called ‘Fly on the Wall,’ about a guy who talks to a dead fly.”
The analyst brought out a bag of pistachios. She cracked one and asked, “Has
Dr. Cohen attributed that to the once-again successful medication, and I suspected
she was correct, but also knew that Misha found it difficult to rise from the dead to keep
me company. He only came around when I was in a bind—his rage a prism to change. I
I tilted my head back so I could look into her eyes, and asked, “Can you tell me
I took a deep breath and tried to relax on the black leather couch.
I was an only child to Benjamin and Matilda Kolinovich. My mother was forty-
two when she had me—an event that caught my parents completely by surprise, as they
My parents were lucky enough to escape the USSR before the Germans opened
the Eastern front. They arrived in the U.S. in 1939. They lived in Brooklyn, where my
youngsters. It was a simple life, but they were thankful, knowing the atrocities they had
In 1946, they were joined by Uncle Misha, my mother’s brother. Four years later,
I was born.
mother cradled me in her arms and exclaimed, “Look at you! My beautiful baby boy!”
Then she wiped a tear and, with reverence, changed my soiled diaper.
53
Yes. I was loved, maybe too much, the analyst said. I might have turned out okay
were it not for Misha and his morass permeating my daily existence. My parents worked
“Maybe Misha screwed me up,” I said, “but I love him more than anyone.”
Janice shrugged. “Sometimes our captors become objects of adulation. It’s a way
to accept and appease them.” Her eyes hardened. “Adults are so callous with children. I
know Misha was a shell of a man, but it doesn’t justify anything he did to you.”
Fearful of her wrath, I changed the subject. “Did you know the U.S. has more
people incarcerated—726 inmates for every 100,000 residents—then any other country
on the face of the earth? Sixty-one percent are ethnic minorities. Fifteen percent of all
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Janice said. “The U.S. is a cruel and greedy place.”
I told her about the essay I’d written about nuclear submarines and how the White
House, congress, and senate were run by white southern evangelical men—George Bush,
“How come they’re not locked up? They’re delusional and very dangerous. I bet
they’ve caused more damage and death than any patient in this hospital, or any poor
black man who’s caught with a gram of crack and goes to jail for a year.”
Janice tapped her pen three times on her desk. “Other people believe they are
sane. Hitler and Stalin were deranged but were able to rule. For that matter, throughout
“How can I afford to stay in this hospital?” I asked. “I don’t have any money.”
54
“The German government is paying for your stay. It’s from Misha’s holocaust
reparation fund.”
I sat up and gaped like a fish thrashing on land. Irony so devious, I had no words
to express my disgust. The doctor looked on with raised eyebrows. Sweat broke on my
I didn’t. I feared the world lurking beyond the well-tended hospital grounds, a
* * *
Perched over the chessboard in Joey’s room, I asked, “Did you meet with the
Rabbi?”
It had been a month since Joey decided to convert, and the process was going
well. The congregation didn’t even bat an eye at the fact the request came from an
asylum. The synagogue sent back reading materials regarding the necessary requirements
for one to become Jewish, and Joey delved into studies. He donned a yarmulke, did his
Tefilin daily, read the Old Testament cover to cover, and began to study Hebrew.
Dorothy was the only one who knew Hebrew and, though skeptical of his
motives, could not in clear conscious turn down a student so diligent and intuitive. Thus,
“And . . . ?”
55
Joey said that Rabbi Jacob was a kind man. Hearing Joey’s reasons to convert, he
agreed that finding one’s partner in life is something God wants us very much to do. He
A flutter in her step, Dorothy entered and addressed Rabbi Jacob in Hebrew. They
carried on for a while, and even opened the Torah at a particular passage to discuss a
Talmudic reference.
Rabbi Jacob then said to Joey, “You are right my friend. Dorothy is indeed a
virtuous woman. She understands your desire for her and is not opposed to it, provided
she knows, in no uncertain terms, that your devotion to Elohim ascends the wants of the
flesh.”
“It does, it does,” Joey assured the Rabbi and eyed Dorothy’s breasts.
“Very well.” the Rabbi rose from the chair. “Complete your reading and essays
and, if all is well, we shall soon convene to welcome you into our congregation.”
“You bet it is!” He held his thumb and forefinger sparsely apart. “I’m this close to
getting laid!”
As for me, I was meditating on Anaxagoras, the Greek philosopher and his notion
of endless time and an infinite universe—the notion that so intrigued Nicholas of Cusa,
and which he had voiced at the Basel conference—only to be sternly rebuffed by the
That was 600 years ago, yet, even recently, I’d witnessed the church still thriving
—one pope die and another rise to prominence. I remembered his funeral, the cardinals—
dressed in red satin gowns and rectangular hats. They stood in procession, lips tightly
pursed, their claim to God as ambiguous as the one voiced by the first caveman barking
at the stars. Every single one of the cardinals was a charlatan, a fake, an earthly attempt to
views of humanity, would no doubt infuriate the master. Let Jesus rise from the dead! Let
him see what has been done to his love. Let him judge the men dressed in satin gowns
who litter the path he tried to reveal. Let him see how wars, famine, torture, and death
have taken place in his name. Surely, he would fall to his knees and once again lament.
“Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do.”
I knew that Jesus’ last words were invented and written 250 years after his death,
by a committee assigned by Constantine, the emperor ruling the eastern part of the
Roman Empire and whose throne was in Constantinople—or what is today Istanbul.
Ruling over the Middle East and parts of Europe, the emperor took a liking to the
underground movement—one that spoke of Jesus, whose name comes from the Hebrew
amount of text to back up his religious conviction, and then assigned a committee of
scholars who, knowing next to nothing about Jesus, proceeded to write the gospel.
57
And it worked, except for the fact that other committees did the same, and now
there are four versions, with people reading one version vehemently disagreeing with any
other.
universe and, in doing so, reject my body—the cumbersome earthly vessel inhabited by
my eternal spirit. Flimsily sheltered in the baby’s body, Spirit struggles with the earthly
and sometimes becomes Hitler and Stalin, Sharon and Saddam, Pope Benedict and
George W Bush. Each was once a divine child, and look what they have become:
timeless, infinite souls crushed into evil flesh and bones. I will forever wonder about the
source that sent me—bloody and disoriented, screaming and scared, shooting out of a
As per Dr. Cohen’s files, my final decent into mental disarray came on April 30,
1975. By then, I’d already become withdrawn and prone to anxiety, but no one, myself
included, knew of the calamity lurking in my subconscious. Misha had been dead for a
decade and little was mentioned about him around the dinner table. My mother was sixty-
seven, and my father, in ill health, decades of smoking ravaging his lungs, was seventy. I
had been a good student in high school but resisted formal education after graduating—
opting to design my own courses while living at home, and aiding my aging parents who
worried about me. They wanted me to take advantage of my analytical mind and become
a doctor, or teacher, but I was weary of crowds and the pressures of academia, which I
Nazis had invaded. It was the dead of winter and the dead of night, and I was trudging
through a field covered with a thick layer of frozen snow. My feet were freezing in torn
boots; I couldn’t feel my toes. My breath labored and wheezing, I fought for air, but little
came. My legs, buried to the knees in snow, I struggled for balance. Then, from afar, but
closing in, I heard the dogs bark, and saw the flashlights. As much as I tried to outrun
them, I could not prevent them from gaining on me—the dogs snarling, the soldiers
barking in German staccato. “Where is that slimy Jew?” they yelled, and the dogs
howled, and I, fatigued and cold beyond resistance, lay in the snow and awaited death.
The soldiers let loose the dogs, and they attacked me. One lunged into my left
calf, but I felt nothing, and the other went for my head. I shielded my head with my arms.
The dog bit on my hands and elbows, its rancid breath steaming in the freezing air.
The soldiers stood laughing, letting the dogs bite off chunks of my frozen flesh.
Then one of the soldiers swung me up to my feet. He placed his pistol in my open mouth,
and snarled, “Die, filthy Jew!” He pulled the trigger and my head exploded.
The relief that accompanies one waking from a nightmare, secure once again in
one’s bed, did not come. Instead, even though I recognized my surroundings and felt my
limbs free of dog bites, and even though my head was still intact, I knew the Nazis were
on my trail and would soon be breaking down the door of our Brooklyn apartment.
Barefoot and wearing only briefs and T-shirt, I escaped the apartment and ran
down to the street where I ran and ran, my mind clenched by massive fear. I was
approached by the Brooklyn P.D., a few miles away from my home, but I was certain
59
they were Germans, and when they tried to corner me, I lunged at them. Kicking and
biting, I growled with rage, until one of them laid into me with his baton. I passed out on
the pavement.
I awoke in a jail cell. Knowing the Germans had captured me, and that I’d soon be
transported to Auschwitz where I’d be carting bodies from the showers to the furnaces,
was too much to bear. I decided to die, and started banging my head against the metal
bars.
Deputies came running and subdued me. I was sent to a facility where I remained
sedated. In my foggy reality, I knew that the Nazis were experimenting on my brain. I
hallucinated about Dr. Mengele who pried open human heads while his subjects were still
alive and peered inside their skulls to see how the brain reacted to impending death. He
Thus, I remained for years in a suicidal rage, oblivious to my parents who came to
visit. They died in guilty misery. Doctors came and went, drugs were administered, and
erase from my mind the tortured Jew lying helpless in a snowy field in Poland.
***
“And now, you’re here,” Janice Cohen concluded the account of my unfortunate
life.
I was lying on the black leather couch. I couldn’t remember anything, but I trusted
“It would be nice if you can see it that way,” she said. “You’re only fifty-five, and
you’ve never been better. Maybe now would be the time to make sense of it all.”
“I have another bit of news that may interest you,” the analyst confided.
“You have a daughter. Her name is Naomi. She’s thirty-four and doing well. You
also have grandchildren, Benjamin, or Benny, he’s six, and Sarah, she’s nine.”
Holy Silence lingered as the doctor withdrew to polishing her lenses. And then I
wept, like never before. God’s kindness and bliss reaching deep into my heart, I was
mingling with academic society—I also had a brief affair with Beth Williams, an older
woman of thirty-five. It lasted but a couple of weeks, maybe a month, after which I fled
I left behind a pregnant woman—one thrilled with the fact. She also sensed that I
was unreliable and would not make a good father, so never divulged the pregnancy to me.
As Naomi matured, so did her curiosity about her biological father and, when she
came of age, she went searching for me. By then I was forty-four. She visited me a few
times and, though I wasn’t responsive, Dr. Cohen said that it helped Naomi understand
On her last visit, my daughter held my hand and said, “I forgive you, dad,” but I
could only share a confused smile, my brain twitching with anxiety. Naomi then got
61
married, had two kids, got divorced, and was now back in Berkeley, teaching chemistry at
The analyst concluded her monologue about my daughter and leaned back in her
chair. I wiped the grateful tears from my face and wondered if I could meet my family.
“I don’t know,” Janice said. “It’s up to Naomi. I’ll contact her and put in a good
My heart beat joyously. “I’ll do so right away, doctor,” I said and, light as a
“Excellent,” Janice said, and walked me to her office door. Standing in the
doorway, she squeezed my shoulder and said, “We’re doing it together, Theodore. We’re
doing it together.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I said, and was on my way to room 32 where I sat at my desk and,
It was a twenty-two page letter that underwent a dozen revisions. One version
finished, it would be read by the doctor who offered suggestions, and then by Dorothy
and Joey who were kind enough to take time from their intense tutoring schedule and
For six days, I chiseled away at the most important words I had ever written and,
by week’s end—though still picky about one coma or another—I was content with the
results.
Dr. Cohen had spoken with Naomi. My daughter promised to read the letter and
I wrote to her about Uncle Misha and the profound effect his misery had had on
my life, and about Benjamin and Matilda, the loving and gentle grandparents she never
got to meet. I told her about the electroshock treatments and about the padded cell. I told
her how finding out I was a father, even if the worst one on earth, had solidified my faith
in a compassionate entity and had bridged the abyss of philosophical anthropology. I was
now more humane then ever, I wrote, and have never had more reason to heal.
“I now know that I will, not too long from now, leave this hospital and find my
way in the real world. And I owe my recovery to you, whether you choose to
acknowledge me or not—I owe it all to you.” I concluded the letter, and signed it, “Your
And thus began the most lucid and happy part of my life. I awakened with
purpose, jogged the hospital grounds, and spend the days reading, or with my friends, or
on the black leather couch. I even joined group discussions, as I realized that life on the
Two weeks later, a letter arrived from Naomi. My letter had made her cry, she
wrote, and she was thrilled by the steps I was taking toward recovery. She promised to
visit soon and enclosed photos of herself and Benny and Sarah. I placed them on my
Naomi was tall and thin, with shoulder length blondish brown hair and blue eyes.
She was feminine but every bit the modern emancipated woman. No words could
describe the pride that welled up in my heart. And my grandchildren were the first ray of
63
sun to emerge from a long winter, striking the melting snow with warmth and hope, with
Naomi wrote that she was planning to visit the last week of June, after the school
year ended. That was a six weeks away and would coincide with Joey’s final step to
There are three levels to the road one takes when opting to become a Jew.
The first is Bet Din—religious court—as when Joey first met with Rabbi Jacob.
Usually, in the conservative congregation Joey hoped to join, the applicant would
be grilled by a committee of three Rabbis as to his intent. Dorothy was surprised to see
only one arrive, but Rabbi Jacob assured her that, because of the unusual circumstances,
the council decided that only he, Rabbi Jacob would be dispatched.
Rabbi Jacob asserted that even though the council of elders he reported to was
traditional, they all nonetheless recognized the wisdom in accepting the applicant without
having to perform the procedure. After all, the Rabbi said, Joey was approaching fifty,
Having said that, Rabbi Jacob looked to Dorothy for approval. Again, as she had
felt when the full panel didn’t arrive to question her beau, Dorothy was confused, maybe
even upset and doubting her self-worth, but when she looked in Rabbi Jacob’s warm
eyes, she agreed and said that if Joey’s love for Elohim was pure, surely a bit of foreskin
But Joey insisted on going through with the circumcision, which in my linguistic
mind correlated with the word circumstance, and I wondered if it was for any good
“It’ll help me get closer to Elohim,” the applicant lied and stayed steadfast, even
“Of course it’s necessary,” Joey later told me over a game of chess and pistachio
nuts. “I want to have sex with Dorothy all the time, day and night. I want her to worship
my penis, but it won’t work if she’s constantly peeling away my foreskin. No. When she
witnesses my penis, its head must be shaven to prove my unconditional love and the
Though he hurt for a week, Joey was soon back to his routine—masturbating four
to six times a day. Dorothy was impressed with his dedication to the conversion process,
but showed her approval only in subtle ways. Maybe it would be a glance unlike any
other, or the writhing of her shoulder like a fluttering butterfly. Joey soaked in each iota
of her moves and knew he was ever more close to the prize.
the applicant reclines in water, be it a stream, an ocean, a lake or, in Joey’s case, the
wading pool in the recreation area. It was then, with the witnessing of three Jewish males
—the Rabbi, myself, and Dr. Rubin—that Joey would complete his conversion.
65
that when the Mikveh was finished, Joey now a Jew, there was no point in postponing the
nuptials.
“After all,” she said. “The Rabbi is already witness, and friends and family will be
attending, so it makes it easy for everyone to celebrate two occasions linked by Elohim’s
blessing.”
The Rabbi agreed, and I did too, as did Dr. Cohen. We then turned our eyes on
Joey. He cleared his throat and, with Dorothy’s ample breasts but an Immersion away,
Thus it was settled that, on June 26, Dorothy and Joey would be married. My
daughter Naomi was to attend, as were Dorothy’s parents, and Joey’s nephew. Janice
Cohen would be present, as would two students in the rabbinical order of the synagogue.
In the serenity of sitting across each other in a game of chess, I mentioned to Joey
that I knew.
“You know what?” He placed his rook where I would forfeit a pawn.
“You know what! And Janice knows, too. Not that we mind.”
Encouraged by Rabbi Jacob, Dorothy was advised to shed her virginal veil, if not
in allowing penetration, at least in touch confirming her passion for Joey. Nodding in
agreement with her unyielding and stealthy approach, Rabbi Jacob nonetheless
mentioned that virtue was tied to the flesh—a ritual speared by Elohim.
66
Dorothy decided to approach the subject of sex much in the same way she taught
Hebrew. One evening, while tutoring Joey, she mentioned, as she would the letter gimel,
A yarmulke’d Joey obliged. As Dorothy reclined on her bed, he searched for the
tender spot on her left ear, and he found it. Dorothy moaned and, in that moan, the bride-
violation, but within the stifling dogma lay a wealth to explore, and explore they did,
Hopelessly defending my queen, I knew Jesus had indeed saved Joey. It wasn’t a
Jesus I believed in, and certainly not the one associated with Benedict XVI, but it was the
link—like the one I now had with Naomi—condensing body and spirit into pure love and
divine worship.
* * *
“Did you know that Cinco de Mayo is also the official day of the liberation of
Auschwitz?” I said.
It was May 5, 2005, and I was reclined on the black leather couch in Dr. Cohen’s
office.
“Sixty years ago Russian troops entered the camp abandoned by the Germans, and
found the few emaciated survivors, ribs protruding, stomachs puffy with parasites, eyes
“I wasn’t aware of that,” the analyst said. “How does that make you feel?”
“And how does that make you feel?” she pressed, knowing I was lying.
“Not very good. I realize the inherent callousness we all possess. We all die
alone.”
“Sad. My grandchildren won’t even shed a tear when I’m dead. Maybe Naomi
won’t either.”
“And?”
Janice shrugged, her narrowed eyes showing her contempt for Misha. “Probably
I sighed, frustrated. “Not a thing. But I remember when he ruffled my hair and
“And how—” she began, but I cut her off. “I know you don’t care for him, but
he’s the only person from my past whom I have feelings for, so can you show a little
respect?”
“No need to bark, Theodore, but I apologize. I’ll try to be more sensitive.”
I hated arguing with her. In ways, she was my family—the sympathetic mother
and demanding father, the sisterly companion and doting aunt. I even tried imagining her
as my lover, but her stout physique and hairy calves prevented that. Still, I loved Janice
Cohen, and she, in her clinical way, loved me. She knew that recidivism was the general
68
rule with mental patients, but kept a stoic, optimistic attitude that demanded a great deal
of discipline.
Janice was never married and was childless. Her ability to love her patients was
genuine and unique, her compassion for humanity as a collective, sincere, but she wasn’t
able to fall in love with a man. In years past, she’d go out on dates, but sitting at a
candlelit table, sipping on wine, she would analyze her date and find the reasons not to
fall in love. Also, because of her marginal looks and sharp mind, she was never pursued
by handsome men. Janice confessed that she was unable to detach herself from the vision
The mental health field was rife with men and women like Janice. For human
beings well versed in the human psyche, I thought they showed little realism and
“As well you should be,” Janice said and, as if to refute my above observation,
To my raised eyebrows and impish smile, she continued, “His name is Antonio
Sandoval, and he’s from Portugal. I met him last year at a seminar in San Francisco.”
Janice smiled. “It’s silly for an analyst to admit, but I didn’t want to jinx it.”
I adjusted the pillow under my neck. “Fair enough. I don’t care for wasted words
either.” Though terribly curious about Mr. Sandoval, I didn’t badger her for details.
“We’re going to Hawaii for ten days,” she offered. “I’ll be leaving next week, so
I’ll be back in plenty of time to monitor Naomi’s visit and the wedding.”
69
“Hawaii? That sounds nice.” I longed for sandy beaches and turquoise water.
“Maybe one day I can take Naomi and the kids. . . .” my voice trailed off, and I
The therapist fondled her pen. “I’m not sure, Theodore. But maybe, after the
wedding, if you’re still doing as well as you are, I can recommend you become an
outpatient.”
“Really?” My heart filled with fear, but also excitement. I could dare imagine—
Janice stood up. “Why don’t you think about it? Maybe write an essay about how
you picture your life outside the hospital. And when I return from my vacation, we can
discuss it.”
I rose to sit on the couch and ran my fingers through my thinning hair. There was
much to contemplate and much to prepare for. “I will, Doctor. I hope Mr. Sandoval is
We walked to her office door where she squeezed my shoulder and said, “We’re
* * *
70
The next day while playing chess, I told Joey how angry I was about the death
and destruction taking place in Iraq. Joey patiently listened to my commentary and then
said, “I agree with your frustration. It’s a crime for man to kill another man, but try to
think about it this way. How many people are alive as we speak?”
“Six billion and three hundred and thirty nine million,” Joey said, and asked,
“What percentage of that number will die of natural causes each year?”
Joey leaned back in his chair. “So if we divide the two numbers, we come up with
fifty two million and nine hundred thousand dead annually. Now divide that number in
“144,930, to be exact,” Joey said. “And how many die daily in wars and other
violence?”
When I didn’t answer, he did, “Maybe five percent of that? That would be almost
7,500. No. That sounds too much. Maybe one percent. What do you think?”
I said that I didn’t know, and that I found the thought of so many people dying
daily to be disconcerting.
“You bet it is,” he cried and crowned a pawn. “Unless you know you’ll be joining
I groaned in frustration and surrendered my last knight. “But natural death isn’t
insidious. It doesn’t relish in someone’s misery. Show those statistics to a mother who
loses her son to war. Tell her about all the other people dying that day, that hour, that
“She probably won’t,” the groom-to-be agreed, checkmated me, and excused
He left me dissatisfied almost to the point where Misha would show up and call
the statistics of relentless death, even after bringing Naomi’s fresh beauty into account, I
At 2:15 A.M. the first clap of thunder shook the building. It was massive—a
grumbling roar that began with a crack and then cascaded over saturated ground. I
startled awake when a flash of lightning crackled and lit up my room. I saw Misha sitting
on the far corner of my bed, his eyes so dark they almost appeared hollow, his long bony
“What’s up, Theodore? Or is it Ted?” His accent was American—gone was the
Another flash of lightning lit the room and I saw his smile—teeth rotting,
“Get out of here,” I screamed and jumped out of bed. “Leave me alone!”
72
“Leave you alone?” He got in my face. “I wish I could. I’m not the one deciding
“You’re lying,” I cried over the rumbling thunder and the sheets of rain striking
my bedroom window.
“Get real, Mr. Kolinsky, or Cole, or whoever the fuck you are. I’ve been dead
forty-one years. Leave me in my fuckin’ grave to rot. I have no interest in continuing this
demented association.”
We screamed at each other, the hatred in our eyes glowing in the dark room lit by
lightning. Then the door swung open and Dr. Rubin, accompanied by two large men,
“It’s him! It’s him,” I cried and pointed to Misha who ignored them.
“Calm down, Theodore,” the doctor said and turned on the light. “It’s only a bad
Misha vanished into thin air. I stood shaking with fear and anger.
“It’s okay, Theodore. Lightning and thunder are pretty scary,” Doctor Rubin said
in a soothing voice. “Here, sit down.” He pointed to my bed. “The storm is over.
I swallowed the sedative he offered me. Then I lay back in bed and pulled the
covers to just beneath my nose. It was silent outside but for dripping rain gutters. The
clock showed 2:35, and I knew that something terribly wrong was soon going to happen.
* * *
73
Perched over a chessboard, I was extremely distraught from the night before.
Misha’s snarl had returned to haunt me. I was once again losing my mind. The German
patrol gaining on me, the dog’s bite carving me up, my toes frozen in torn boots, I labored
through the snow reaching up to my stiffening knees. I was doomed. The pistol would be
placed in my mouth. The trigger would fire the gun. My head would explode.
So we played, and I did badly, and Joey asked if I was okay. I said I wasn’t and
described how Misha had reappeared and how much I needed Dr. Janice Cohen by my
side.
“It’s not by chance that Misha showed up while Janice is away,” said Dorothy,
Though she was a good chess player, Dorothy rarely participated in a match.
Rather, she relished the male rivalry—Joey and me like two caribou, horns locked. She
enjoyed watching Joey beat me. It was a measure of the alpha male she longed for. And
though ready, in an instant, to drop Joey for the sake of being with me, Dorothy was
preparing for an alternate reality—one shaping up well with the help of Beanstalk.
I could feel her love for me drain. I had lost the only unconditional love I’d had
since my mother, Matilda, cooed in my ear, “You are the cutest baby ever.”
“Misha knows it’s the last chance he has,” Dorothy said. “Naomi will soon come
visit, and Joey and I will be married, and you can move to the outpatient program. You
Then Dorothy became Heather. She stood up and gyrated her hips. “You wanna
mess with me, Misha? I’ll fuck you up!” she seethed through clenched teeth. Then she
threw open her robe and screamed. “You low-life piece of scum! Stop talking and eat my
pussy!”
She calmed and whispered, “Sorry . . . but when I’m angry, Heather . . . and she’s
angry with Misha and wants him to leave you alone and never return.”
tortured brain, I withdrew to my room and lay in my bed, shaking, my lips moving in
prayer. The words rang rife with entitlement—believing the universe cared whether I
lived or died, whether sane or deranged. No. The universe cared not for my need to unite
with Naomi whom I could not face in my current state of mind. Never had I felt more
“Please, Theodore,” she whispered and took off her shirt. Blue veins like trenches
zigzagged across her pale breasts, and black hairs grew around her nipples. “Come,
suckle on my warmth. Let my body sooth the beast lurking in your mind.”
* * *
75
I was awakened to the sound of dogs barking in the distance. Misha was standing
by the bed and shaking my shoulder. “They’re coming,” he said calmly. “We need to
escape through the window. Quick. Tie the sheets together. We can dangle then through
the window. We’ll have about a six-foot drop to the ground. We can do it.”
The barking was gaining on us. I knotted the sheets, tied one end to the bed, and
dangled the other out the window. Misha kept mumbling, “Hurry, hurry.”
I scaled down the sheets and jumped to the ground. The hospital fence was fifty
feet away. I crouched and ran across the lawn, scaled the wall, and dropped to the street.
I took off running the desolate city streets, Misha wheezing by my side, our
Disguised as American police, two Gestapo agents were waiting, squad car lights
flashing, harsh voices ordering me to stop. I wasn’t about to stop. I’d had enough of their
cowardly pursuit. I lunged at them, Misha’s screams ringing in my ear, “Kill the bastards.
I swung my fist and struck a German. He fell to the ground. I was ready to crush
his skull with my foot, when I heard a shot. I turned to see the bullet scorching the air.
The bullet struck my head. The blood—thick crimson drapes—obscured my vision. I fell
to the ground. Slipping into darkness, I heard Misha’s final words, “Good job, Theodore.”
* * *
76
The Cave
I woke up and saw a pretty young woman with dark eyes and long curly black
hair. She looked at me with grave concern, then caressed my shoulder and asked, “Ted?
I was in a cave, walls dimly lit by a kerosene lamp. “I can hear you,” I mumbled,
“Yes!” Daphne clenched her fists and then looked up and cried, “He’s back! He’s
back!”
I followed her eyes and saw a man with wavy blondish hair and deep brown eyes.
He came to kneel by me and cradled my fingers with his right hand, while his left held
thumb and forefinger sparsely apart. “We were this close to losing you.”
“Hi, Ted.” He smiled and said to Daphne. “Squeeze two lemons in a cup of water,
Daphne walked to the cave’s corner where a blanket lay, on it pots and bowls,
food and bottled water. Bruce felt my forehead and sighed with relief. “The fever’s
almost gone.”
“You ate something really bad, could’ve been the canned peas. You had a bout of
botulism or listeria.”
“Five days. I wanted to take you to the hospital, but Daphne wouldn’t let me. She
said the feds would come and arrest you, and that you’d never survive captivity.”
I tried to sit up but got dizzy and quickly slumped back on the mattress—a
“It’s not yet time yet to stand,” Bruce said and shook his head.
He was the owner of the Mocking Bird Art Gallery in Sacramento, California, and
a medic in the National Guard who’d recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He
was in the same unit my younger brother Ray belonged to. Ray was killed in Iraq five
months ago. His humvee was blown up by an improvised explosive device while
traveling Airport Road, a murderous seven-mile stretch between Baghdad and the
Daphne, who was Ray’s wife and was pregnant with his baby, handed me a cup.
The sour-sweet concoction tasted refreshing. I gulped it down. “More please,” I said, and
“But without the B powder,” Bruce said. “Add spirulina and crushed garlic.”
took my temperature and blood pressure, and handed me two pills. “Antibiotics,” he said.
“It’s almost midnight,” Bruce said, “Get some rest. We need to build you up.”
I woke up to the most beautiful dawn of my life. I was back in my body, back in
my head, back in my life. I slowly stood up and shuffled to the cave’s entrance. Daphne
We were in the Sierras. The meadow before me rang with chirps and chatters. I
breathed the freshness of spring, Genesis, sweet, sweet air. I sat on a boulder and cried.
My name is Ted Cole. My last name was never abbreviated from Kolinovich. I am
not Jewish. I’m Irish-English. I’m thirty years old, not fifty-five, and my dark hair hasn’t
lost its luster. I am not a school teacher, and neither am I a mental patient. I didn’t
dismember Rachel in Eagle Lake, and I never played chess with Joey or reclined upon the
for the thirty-seventh president. My mom, Angela, was a nurse and a brilliant poet.
Growing up, it was me and my brother Ray who was four years my junior, and
everything, I taught him a lot. And when he joined the National Guard six years before
the war, it wasn’t a big deal. I thought it was a stupid idea, but Ray liked guns. I didn’t.
But it was no big deal. He liked gettin’ away for a weekend, shootin’ up targets, and
havin’ a few beers with the guys. He was twenty then. Party on, Dude!
Then Ray met Daphne. It was a good love, and they got married, and my brother
was a cappy hamper. Ray didn’t get the difference between republicans and democrats
and didn’t care to inquire, though I tried hard to explain. Ray never voted. “I don’t even
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know the guy,” he’d say, while I ran fundraisers for Dennis Kucinich, a far-left liberal
who garnered only two percent of the democratic vote in the primaries that John Kerry
had won, and who later lost the election to George Bush, the single most hated man in my
mind.
It all happened so fast. Suddenly, there was 9-11, and then a war in Afghanistan,
and quickly another one in Iraq—wars based on lies, deception, and sheer cruelty. The
National Guard was called in, and my brother Ray was ordered to duty to occupy Iraq.
In the bat of an eye, he was on a C-5 transport to North Carolina where he joined
a convoy of airplanes flying into Kuwait and a convoy of tanks and trucks rumbling
across the desert north to Baghdad where, in a team of humvees, he started to patrol the
greater Baghdad area, until the IED exploded beneath his vehicle and killed him.
When he got his orders, I told him, “Don’t go! You didn’t enlist to go to war.”
“I can’t desert my unit,” he said. Also, the army wasn’t taking shit from anyone—
they were locking up deserters in military jails, which now seems like a good outcome. I
didn’t believe he’d get hurt. Yeah, I was against the war, but I was sure Ray would return
But a month later, his body was delivered in a metal casket draped in an American
flag. He was buried with military honors. Letters arrived from the White House and
Donald Rumsfeld’s office, commending Ray Cole for the ultimate sacrifice he’d made for
liberty and freedom, defending and securing the American way of life.
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We were all in a daze of grief and anger, and then our family fell apart. My mom,
Angela, stayed in her bedroom. She couldn’t stop crying. My dad, Paul, couldn’t work.
His hands shook, and no one wanted a dentist with shaky hands. After twenty-five years,
he started smoking again. He sat in the living room, lighting one cigarette with the butt of
the other. He was on antidepressants and sleeping pills. He gained forty pounds. My mom
wouldn’t talk to him. She wanted him out of the house, but he refused to leave. Mom said
it was all his fault—the father who allowed his son to go to war. She’d known all along
that something bad would happen. She started writing poems about death and graves and
Back in ‘99, when Ray joined the National Guard, my mom threw an
unbelievable fit. But my dad waved her off. “Let the boy have a little fun. It’s one
weekend a month.”
“No, it won’t!” She slammed her fist on the dining room table stacked with
“Mom,” I said, “he’s a big boy now. I agree with you, but Ray won’t listen. Hey,
“It’s not funny!” Mom yelled and stormed off, leaving her three men to cower in
My grief was compounded by rage I didn’t know lurked within me. All around me
people walked, lived, breathed, and they didn’t give a shit. Even friends who attended the
funeral and offered condolences, soon forgot about my brother Ray. They carried on with
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life. Ray became the occasional glimpse of memory when they heard about new
casualties, or when a TV ad for the marines came on. And I don’t blame them. I didn’t
truly grieve for the fallen. They were statistics. And even when Jim Lehrer on PBS, at the
end of each news broadcast, showed the portraits of the recently killed, and I stopped
whatever I was doing and stood silently, giving honor, I didn’t feel much. I tried to
imagine how the mothers felt, submerged in never-ending grief. Now, it was happening to
my mother. And I didn’t know if she’d come out of it. She was sixty-five. People don’t
snap out of anything at sixty-five. And my dad, like a zombie stumbled through the
empty rooms of the house and remembered the laughter of his sons when they were boys.
And with my rage, came hate—hate for everything—the media and it’s callous
lies; each and every American flag I saw waving from a building; the self-righteous
Republicans still maintaining it was good to get rid of Saddam; the decadent culture that
said it was all about winning, no matter what the means; the fat people driving gas-
guzzling behemoths of SUVs; and the callous Christian evangelists who claimed America
I hated all those things, but more than anything, I hated George W Bush, the
infantile Lilliputian of a man—thin tight lips like a lizard, dead eyes staring blankly,
The only one who kept it together was Daphne. “I have little Ray in the oven,”
she said and patted her belly. “It’s not healthy for the fetus if the mother cries too much.”
I knew she’d be all right. She had someone to live for. She was young. She’d see
that Ray’s son—she kept insisting it was a boy—would grow up with the best mother
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motherhood had ever witnessed. She locked the sorrow away in her heart and moved on.
She’d stop by the house. She hoped the coming grandchild would cheer up my parents,
but he didn’t.
“After he’s born,” Daphne said to me, “when they hold him, they’ll be pleased.”
I had my doubts. The baby would remind them of their loss. You don’t get over
someone dying by replacing them with someone else, especially if it’s your kid.
Three months had passed since Ray’s funeral, and things were getting worse. The
life we lived was hollow, and souls can exist in a vacuum for only so long. So the time
came, with great sorrow but not with great surprise, when my mother could stand it no
more. She stealthily raided my father’s supply of sleeping pills. Then, with the help of a
quart of whiskey, she swallowed the pills. When I came into her room the next morning
bearing a cup of tea, I found her dead in her bed. Her suicide note was a short poem, at
the end of which, after apologizing for her weakness to withstand grief, she wrote: “I will
After we got back from her funeral, my father resumed his position in the living
room. With shaky hands, he lit a cigarette. People came to pay respects. He ignored them,
but for an occasional confused smile. Daphne and I served refreshments and passed
By nine that night, only my father and me sitting in the living room, me sipping
Coke and Bacardi, he smoking his hundredth cigarette of the day, he looked at me and,
through clenched teeth, fingers curled with rage, seethed in his raspy voice, “I want
“Yes sir,” I said and I meant it. His pain was deeper than mine, but I was pissed in
a very fundamental way. I was mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore.
My dad withdrew to the bedroom where my mom had died. She hadn’t let him in
the bedroom since Ray’s funeral, but now he was back in his bed, alone, defeated,
A week later, Bruce came back from Iraq. He was the one who had zipped up
Ray’s body bag. Bruce was an artist and medic, but he enjoyed shooting guns. That was
before he witnessed the carnage. He was a changed man. He wasn’t about to ever be
fooled again. I dredged his memory for every bit of Ray’s last days, and wept when he
described what had happened. Three other men died in the attack, and two others gravely
injured, limbs torn apart. I didn’t know any of them—a footnote in the news.
It was midnight, and we were drunk. My life lay in ruins of anger and grief, and I
said, “I’m not pissed at the people who set up the bomb that killed Ray. If someone
“I’m angry with the people who sent him to Iraq,” I said.
I remember the first time I saw a Hummer—a monstrous contraption rising from
Neanderthal roots. It had a beastly, military, carnivorous sneer. The Hummer was driven
by a fat woman, with two fat kids sitting in the back. What the fuck is that, I thought to
Then more appeared. Some bright yellow, some garnished with custom wheels,
they traversed suburbia. Rising from the depths of entitlement, their engine grills snarled,
Ray rode a Hummer to his death, his demise linked to the ignorant self-
righteousness of a fat bitch and her two fat kids, who thought that owning a Hummer was
cool, that it showed the spirit of independence, be all you can be. Who the fuck were
those people?!
“I’ll tell you, but I ain’t part of it, and there can’t be loss of life involved,” Bruce
“Okay, brother,” I said calmly and held out my hand. “No loss of life.”
With the help of the Internet and Bruce’s knowledge, I assembled a dozen bombs,
each with the power of about six hand grenades. It’s ludicrously easy to build bombs.
At two in the morning on tax day, April 15, I snuck into the Hummer car
dealership and planted the explosives. Then I sat in my car across the street, turned on the
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video camera, and let’er rip. The explosion was massive, a beautiful sight to see. Two
dozen brand new beasts of automobiles were reduced to twisted, smoldering metal.
I mailed the video to a local TV station, accompanied by a note saying, “Blood for
oil will not stand.” Over the next week, it was the biggest story in the country.
protruding—assured the citizens that, “The culprit challenging out national security will
be found.”
Bruce drove me into the Sierras where the cave, tucked away high in the
mountains, awaited me. We found the cave ten years ago. In the old days, Ray and I
would hike for a week at a time. We got to know the mountains pretty good. No one else
I settled into a restful life removed from the toxic madness of man.
The FBI swarmed Sacramento. Men driving black SUVs, with crew cuts and dark
shades, questioned everyone. It wasn’t long before they came to question the Cole
household. Grieving families were prone to revenge, and I was known as an anti-war
activist. After interrogating my father who knew nothing about my actions, and after
finding out I had suddenly left town, my name rose to the top of the list. My picture
appeared on the six o’clock news. Then came the botulism, or listeria, or whatever it was
that nearly killed me. Fortunately, Daphne and Bruce, with a well-stocked medical bag,
And now, a life returned, I was sitting and crying on a boulder outside the cave,
A rustle sounded behind me. It was Bruce. He joined me and sat on the boulder.
“Man! I thought you were going to die, but you fuckin’ pulled through.”
And it was. But with it came Ted Cole, a.k.a Kolinovich, the school
Benjamin, the drugstore chemist. He was the Slavic looking one. Matilda Kolinovich, my
mother, who cradled me in her arms and cooed, “You are the best baby ever,” was of
Eagle Lake was also vivid in my mind: walking to the school and passing the
churches, Methodist, Episcopalian, Quaker. I could hear the bell tower strike eight—
metallic tones pleasing in perverse ways. There was an inscription above the entrance to
the Methodist church: “Enter into his Gates with Thanksgiving and into his Courts with
Praise.”
Paul Sudick staring me down with contempt . . . I was chased by demons, the
occult. I killed Rachel. She was a vampire. I escaped Eagle Lake, her body in the trunk of
my car, my clothes stained with blood, but the highway patrol pulled me over and didn’t
Then Janice Cohen rescued me. I fondly remembered the asylum—a generous and
forgiving place. Naomi, my daughter, was about to visit me. My life was good. I missed
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Joey and Dorothy. I never found out if they got married. And what happened between
Janice and her new boyfriend? They were due back from Hawaii. I had so many
questions.
But then Misha returned. Who was the old Jew who survived Auschwitz by
carting bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens? I had no idea. I’d read about the
holocaust—a wicked time, but also a footnote to many other genocides and massacres,
Eggs very well cooked, with dry toast, two cloves of garlic, and a lemon–honey
Daphne was eight months pregnant, and I was in love with her. Before Ray died,
and before I became ill, I was not in love with her. She was my brother’s wife, and she
was like a sister to me. But not anymore, and when she handed me the plate, she smiled,
and I was in love. I knew she liked me, maybe loved me, but maybe not that way.
I found a spot outside the cave, beneath an oak tree, and began to record in word
memories, so detailed. I wasn’t afraid of Misha, or maybe I was, just a bit. Misha’s bony
fingers twisting with rage reminded me of my father Paul, lighting one cigarette from
Lying on the black leather couch, a cylinder pillow tucked under my neck, I’d say,
But Janice Cohen didn’t exist, nor did anyone else I had met during my battle
with botulism.
The mountains settled my soul, and in the company of Bruce and the enchanting
Daphne, I found myself content to live in the cave indefinitely. Within three days, I had
two thick notebooks filled with recollections from my experiences in Eagle Lake and the
asylum.
I gave one notebook to Bruce and the other to Daphne and asked them to read and
comment. It was after breakfast on the fourth morning of my recovery. They began to
read, and I launched into filling another notebook. My memory clearer, I remembered
He suffered from migraines that left him crippled for days. He laid in a darkened
room, a wet towel soaked in ice water over his forehead, and moaned like a wounded
I stood in the doorway. He turned his back to me and pleaded, “Go away, little
man. Go away.”
I slithered off, shoulders drooped, mind filled with suffering I didn’t comprehend.
* * *
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“I don’t know what to think,” Bruce said. “No doubt people with high fevers can
“I don’t know. . . . I’ve read about people who had memories that they were once
“So you think I was Theodore Kolinovich? That I really lived that life?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Bruce abruptly assured me, “but we have a situation on our
hands. The Feds are closing in. You can’t go home. What do you want to do?”
“And then?”
I shrugged.
Daphne patted her belly. “I need to get back. Little Ray is due in a few weeks.”
“And I need to get back to my family and the gallery,” Bruce said. “I can come up
Who are you, Ted Cole, I thought, now that your brother and mother are dead, and
your dad would be better off dead, and the FBI is in hot pursuit, and you have nowhere to
“If you’re good, tomorrow,” Bruce said. “I think you’re in full recovery.”
I was hoping they would stay longer, but their eyes said otherwise.
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I had but a short time left to express my love to her. It could be months, if at all,
Over lunch, I tried to share my experiences while I was ill, but they seemed
uncomfortable with the topic, so I let it go, and we talked about Ray, and Angela, and
Bruce stood up. “Go ahead, guys, I feel a number two coming on.”
“Do you think I’m different from the Ted I was before I got sick?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
Her sensual eyes smiled. “It’s like you’re older, mellower. You used to be pretty
high-strung.”
Daphne shrugged. “I don’t know. I think so. We’ve been through so much lately.”
“I’ll stay with my mom, but I don’t really have plans. After he’s born, I’ll think
about it.”
I clasped my palms. “Something changed in me. I don’t think about you the same
Daphne held my hand. “Now isn’t the time, Ted. You’re like a brother to me.”
The guillotine screeched down to sever my neck. “And you think maybe that will
“I don’t know. I want you to be in the baby’s life. You’re his uncle.”
I straightened my shoulders. “I’ll leave the U.S. I don’t wanna live here anyway,
“Not sure,” he said, “but let me talk to some people at the bottom of the hill. You
can’t stay here. Sooner or later park rangers will come through, or hikers. You’re a sitting
duck.”
It was midnight but I couldn’t sleep. I sat under the stars and let their distance
soothe me. Earth is so much less than a tiny speck. How is it possible that so much pain
* * *
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The next morning, Bruce bear-hugged me. “Finish all the antibiotics. I’ll be back
in ten days.”
Daphne hugged me, awkward because of her belly, and because I was afraid it
She pecked me on the lips and smiled. “I’ll visit as soon as I can. I like the idea of
Bruce’s jeep turned the corner down the slope. It was nine in the morning. The
cave awaited me in tidy silence. I reviewed my diaries. Then I turned on the transistor
radio that broadcast NPR and the recent calamities. Suicide bombers in Iraq, at a rate of
four to six daily, were killing hundreds of civilians. No one knew how many civilians had
died so far. Two-thousand American soldiers had also died, and twelve thousand were
wounded. The senate had allocated another eighty billion to fight “the war on terror,” and
the defense department was already asking for fifty billion more, bringing the war’s
The republicans were flexing political muscle in denying democrats the filibuster
about judiciary nominations. George W Bush was shoving his new nominee to the UN,
John Bolton—a rabid ideologue—down the senate throat. The airlines were canceling
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their pension plans, and the FBI was still looking for one, Ted Cole, the homegrown
terrorist.
It was the same old shit, same callous crap, same greedy manipulation, but no one
was doing anything about it—the grip of power clamped down on the masses.
I switched off the radio and listened to the meadow. Then I walked to the creek
I settled into a routine that included long daily hikes, watching my diet, and
writing my memories. I grew my beard. Within memories and mourning lay new resolve.
I was only thirty—I had my whole life before me. I was dealt tragic and unjust losses, but
I fought back from the dead to claim my body. I had Daphne and Little Ray to care for.
I missed my father and worried about him, the gentle dentist who worked so hard
only to be left alone. I missed my mother. I yearned to read her poetry books. I missed
In the old days, it was eye for an eye. If someone from one tribe died at the hands
Complying with the Fatwa of old, I yearned for W’s blood—the one person more
responsible for my brother’s death than anyone else. If I could—strapped with explosives
and running with all my might—make it to his motorcade and blow myself up, I’d die a
cappy hamper. I really would. It was for a good cause, and no one would be left to mourn
I had two people to live for—little Ray and his mother Daphne. I wanted her to
fall in love with me but was content to be Uncle Ted. And if she met someone, I won’t
obsess over it, and Little Ray can spend weekends with me, his uncle, and we’d play ball,
rage, as it did with millions, Bush got away with his crimes. Surrounded by a squadron of
secret service, financed by the riches of oil tycoons, padded with the humane message
abducted from Jesus, the brutal and obtuse man got away with executing my brother and
destroying my family.
of sorts. That was, for now, the best answer for me. Had I not been a fugitive, I’d have
gone to Brooklyn and traversed the neighborhoods in search of the house he grew up in,
with his father Benjamin, the chemist, and his mother Matilda, the math teacher.
Anaxagoras and his argument suggesting a timeless infinite universe. Accused of heresy,
he quickly realized the limitations of his physical body and retreated with fear and an
apologetic smile. “Timeless? Infinite? I don’t know what I was thinking! It was probably
the wine. My wife says I drink too much and, when I do, the silliest ideas preoccupy my
Many years later, the answer still eludes. The lens showing afterlife has been, for
some reason, hermetically sealed and, by doing so, has caused a great deal of fear and
frustration that have given way to the invention of religion. Trying to embrace Divinity
was good, but the invention of religion was bad, and still is, and has nothing to do with
Divinity. But it’s also Divinity’s fault, I say, for not providing a clear lens for man to see
Uncle Misha was the epitome of man’s cruelty and God’s muffled orders.
No man bent down farther for the sake of inhaling one more breath; no man saw
absurd evil more than he; no one so industriolously touched the hands of death. Why was
Perhaps he was stronger than most people. Maybe his suffering had forced
Divinity to finally admit error—faced with the punishment incurred by man on man.
Surely, after such a display of incompetence, Divinity would exclaim, “I was really off on
this one.”
Or, as my Uncle Misha said, Divinity would shrug. “You don’t like it? Nu. Sue
* * *
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The sound of the jeep sent me running down the slope to greet Bruce. We hugged
Bruce brought a joint. We sat at the cave’s entrance and imbibed. I hadn’t smoked
It took me a good hour to clear my head. I kept telling myself that I was really
stoned, but that it would soon pass. I walked to the creek and submerged in the frosty
stream and stayed there for a long time, far longer than I imagined I could.
As I bathed, I smelled the cabbage soup in the Brooklyn apartment where I grew
up, leaning out the ground floor window and seeing men returning from Shul, shiny
Sabbath shoes sounding off the narrow streets, Torahs tucked beneath their arms. Every
so often, a big fellow tagged along, tall and wide, hair long and pitch black, as were his
On a Friday evening, I was walking with my mother, Matilda, when the men
returning from Shul turned the corner, the giant with them.
“A golem is someone who doesn’t need to try to be good, because he already is,”
As the mountain stream cooled me down, I recalled a chess game with Joey when
I’d suggested that the struggle with Christian fundamentalism in the US was much like
the one engulfing Islam. I quoted writer Rafiq Ali, a Muslim Arab with a soft Oxford
accent.
“I agree,” Joey said, and confiscated my rook. “The war in Iraq has nothing to do
Joey seized one of my pawns and sneered, “He’d kill every one of those
bastards!”
He was kidding. Joey was the only person I knew who believed in Jesus without
the dogma, the political manipulation, the economics. For Joey, it was about love and
forgiveness and tolerance. Defying Benedict XVI who rose through the church ranks to
become pope, Joey was every bit the portrait of Jesus. That’s why Joey was locked up. He
was a true follower, and true followers don’t fare well in religious hierarchy, as
Would Joey have been a better pope than Ratzinger/Benedict? Yes he would.
I swam under water, scalp tingling, and saw Misha on one of his good days.
We walked to the park and sat on a bench under a towering maple, by a path busy
with pedestrians—business men in suits walking by, coattails flitting in the wind, mothers
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pushing strollers, and high school girls walking home from school. Misha eyed every
woman, pupils dilated with unrequited lust, and mourned, “So many sweet, beautiful
women, but none of them want me.” He was also jovial, basking in woman and her
treasures.
“If women ruled the world, I would not end up in Auschwitz,” he said.
I stood up in the stream, water up to my knees, and walked to shore. I lay in the
grassy banks and let the spring sun warm me. I remembered my childhood with Ray and
how I taught him to hit a baseball and catch it with a glove. After he was voted MVP of
his Little League team, my dad gave me twenty-dollars and said, “You’re also the winner
today. Ray’s good cause you were patient and helpful with him.”
Lying on the grassy banks fifteen years later, I wiped away a tear. The buzz was
easing.
I walked back to the cave where Bruce had steeped a pot of tea.
“Not so good, but he’s damn proud of you. Many people in town are proud of
We unloaded supplies from the jeep and then sipped tea and ate tuna sandwiches.
Bruce had located someone who knew someone who worked for the witness protection
program who said that, for fifty grand, I will have a passport, driver’s license, and social
security card.
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“Well, you do and you don’t.” Bruce poured more tea in his cup. “I talked to your
dad. He’s into it. He’s getting a second mortgage on the house. He says it’s your share of
the will. The other half goes to Daphne and Little Ray.”
I fished out two letters from my bag. “One’s for him, the other for Daphne.”
“And this is for you,” Bruce said and handed me an envelope with feminine
Acquiring my new identity would take two months. In the meantime, I was to
remain in the cave. Bruce wanted to take photos for the passport but decided against it.
“Your hair’s too long, and I don’t like the beard. Shave your head and wear shades and
It was evening when Bruce left, jeep chugging down the dirt path, and I was left
to read Daphne’s letter—anxious with grief and doubt, I was unsettled but tempered by
hope.
Left to ponder my love for Daphne, I lived in welcome solitude. I mostly ignored
the transistor radio, but when I listened—a compulsive need tying me to the herd
marching to the slaughter—all I heard was the buzzing cacophony of shrill voices filled
with lament.
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The herd lived beneath me, beneath clouds that rushed in at night and lay like a
thick gray blanket shrouding the mayhem below. Then the clouds dispersed. The valley
Bruce returned two weeks later. Little Ray had been born without negative
incident. At seven pounds, eleven ounces, he was twenty-one inches long and happily
My father got the loan. Fifty thousand dollars were paid to the guy from the
witness protection program who said we should be ready to leave when he said it was
carrying fine furniture traveling from Seattle. Once in Canada, I was free to live my new
identity. Cosmetic surgery and a very low profile were highly recommended. The contact
My father’s was a two-liner: “I love you and am proud of you. Live your life with
Daphne’s was a bit longer. She appreciated my love and concerns, my hopes and
dreams, and my commitment to Little Ray, but she was confused and needed time to
reflect. She hoped that once I was settled in Vancouver, she could come to visit.
I let the letter drop to the ground. “I don’t think Daphne wants me.”
“Do you mind?” Bruce asked and reached for the letter.
“Go ahead.”
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“Mmm . . .” he mumbled when he was finished. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance. She has
“I won’t.”
“No. She says she hoped to visit me. It’s not like saying I will visit you.”
“Semantics,” he shrugged. “We’re both coming to visit you, but it’ll be about six
Then he pulled out a battery-operated razor and sneered, “I vill shave you, and
I’d never been bald, and it lent a sinister look. My beard was shaved but for a
well-trimmed goatee hugging a narrow mustache. I was fitted with brown contact lenses.
rattled in the jeep for thirteen hours on the road to Seattle. A large truck stacked with
furniture awaited us. I hid inside a king-sized bed frame. We crossed the border without
incident. Six hours later, on a sunny and cool morning, Bruce opened the back doors and
I was a free man. My new name was Robert Jones. I was born in Chicago thirty-four
We checked into a nice hotel and Bruce hung out for a couple of days. We partied
* * *
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I rented a one-bedroom in the hills overlooking the Pacific. I had surgery done to
my nose and chin. When the surgery was done, I didn’t look like Ted Cole, the terrorist
on the run.
It was fun living in Canada. The norm were progressive people. Watching the US
from afar was like watching a spoiled fat kid throw temper tantrums. I was relieved and
I was reading an article when, suddenly, while reading the word “change,” I
couldn’t see the letter a. I shut my eyes. The void in my cornea was replaced with a
jagged pulsating light, like tiny bolts of shimmering lightning. The jagged vibrating light
Craving cool darkness and silence, I went to the freezer and dumped a tray of ice
in a bowl of water. I stirred a towel in the icy water and placed it on my forehead. Then I
swallowed three extra-strength Bayer aspirin and, blinds shut, room silent, retired to bed.
My mind traveled far and wide. The towel soaked with ice water cradled my
feverish brow….I woke up spaced out and hungry. The jagged light was gone.
Over the next two months, I had five more migraines, none worse than the first
one.
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I remained motivated by Daphne’s upcoming visit, and was devastated when she
wrote that she would not be coming. She had met a man, a good man, and was moving to
Sausalito, a quaint town a stone throw away from the Golden Gate Bridge. She was very
sorry to deny me time with Little Ray, but confessed she wasn’t in love with me.
“It’s a difficult time for me. I need closure and, being with you, I’d never forgive
I collapsed on my bed and cried. A powerful migraine attacked me. The hours
passed in agony and mounting dread. Night descended. A howling and chilly wind sailed
I was lying in bed, my brain on fire, when Misha came to stand over me. Six
My body instantly drenched in cold sweat, I sat up on my bed. The dogs were
right outside my door, vicious bark mingling with the howling wind. I smelled their foul
“Quick! Through the back door,” Misha cried, bony fingers twitching.
In sweats and slippers, I ran to the back door. It was raining hard. The back door
led to a steep downhill trail that curved through trees and rocks. I rushed out and ran,
“We’ll outrun them this time,” he panted. “They’ll never find us again!”
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I was running very fast when my muddy slippers gave way and I crashed to the
ground. My head struck a boulder. The last thing I remembered was Misha standing over
* * *
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The Hospital
My eyes wandered the room and came to rest on a stocky woman with frizzy hair
“Hello, Theodore,” Dr. Janice Cohen said and smiled wearily. She held forefinger
“I’m sorry,” I said and started crying. “There was a terrible thunder storm, and
you were in Hawaii, and Misha came back, and I didn’t know what to do . . . and the
“It’s okay, Theodore,” Janice shooshed me and wiped my sweaty brow. “From
“He had no choice, Theodore. You attacked his partner. Fortunately the bullet only
“Two days.”
“I had an amazing dream. I was young, and I lived in a cave in the mountains, and
I had a brother who died in Iraq, and I fell in love with his wife. . . . ”
106
“Morphine can induce some pretty strong dreams,” the analyst said.
We sat quietly for a minute, when, voice trembling, I said, “I want Misha to go
“I believe you can,” Janice said, voice more soothing than a fluffy pink cloud.
“I know that he loved me, but that’s not good enough anymore.”
“No. It’s not good enough anymore. I’m sure Misha supports your choice,” Janice
said and squeezed my shoulder. “Good work Theodore. Very good work.”
“You will, Theodore, very soon. Now close your eyes and get some rest.”
coming to visit me soon. I was going to see her after all. I would make sure to be healthy
when she arrived. I imagined her lively blue eyes smiling at me.
“Hi dad,” she’d say casually, and I, being called Dad for the first time in my life,
One with a timeless infinite universe, I was smiling when my body floated off in
blessed sleep.
* * *