An excerpt from my work in progress, 500 Miles.

Four

Who’s that?” I asked. It was the second week of the new school year and Vince and I were walking to our next class when I spotted the raven-haired goddess walking toward us. It was a rhetorical question. I didn’t really expect that Vince would know.

“Her?”

“Don’t point you idiot! Yes, her.”

“Gail Russell. She’s in my second hour history class. I hate history.”

“That’s because you don’t think anything of any importance happened before you got here. Don’t you want to leave behind some legacy of your own—have people read about you in a history book after you’re gone?”

“I never thought about it that way.”

Gail passed us and I stopped to turn around to watch her retreating figure, which was divine, the way her hips swayed in the floral skirt that bared just enough of her shapely calves.

“You go on,” I said to Vince. “I’ll catch up to you.”

“But—”

“Go on. I won’t be late.”

Then I hurried to catch up with Gail.

“Excuse me,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. She stopped and turned to look up at me.

“Yes?” she said in a soft voice.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Gail Russell?”

She looked confused. Apparently it was a line she hadn’t heard before. I was pleased I was the first.

“But I am Gail Russell,” she said.

“Really? Imagine that. But I was referring to the actress who starred opposite John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch. I think she’s the most beautiful woman in pictures.”

This Gail blushed and averted her eyes at my homage.

“I need to get to my next class,” she said.

“Yeah, me, too. But listen, I know it’s short notice, but how would you like to go to the dance with me tomorrow?”

Gail blushed anew, but she bravely looked up at me. She took a moment to consider; eventually a smile came to her lips—she had a beautiful smile—and then she nodded.

“I think I’d like that,” she said.

“Great! Meet me on the front steps after school and we can exchange phone numbers and particulars.”

“Okay,” she said and hurried off to her next class.

I stood a moment to admire her departure and wondered at my great good fortune—that she hadn’t yet been asked to the dance by some other guy. I was still too young to understand that the cutest girls were often left to spend Friday night home alone because guys figured they either had already been asked or they’d get shot down for presuming they’d consent to going to a school dance with a mere mortal.

And then it hit me that I’d neglected to tell her my name. Apparently this sort of thing was new to her, too, since she hadn’t asked for it.

“My name is Alex Król.”

Gail smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I realized I’d forgotten to ask after I sat down in my English class.” And then, “You must think me horrible.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m one of those girls.”

“One of what girls?”

“The kind that goes out with any guy who asks her. You know, loose.” Gail blushed and looked away.

“You blush. I like that.”

Gail’s discomfiture deepened.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

She looked at me. “That’s okay.”

“If I thought you were that type of girl, I wouldn’t have asked you to the dance.”

Gail smiled and I felt my heart shift into a higher gear.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You a senior?”

“A junior.”

“Me, too.” And then, “I can’t believe I haven’t seen you around school before. You’re someone I’d notice.”

Gail smiled and said, “We just moved here, from North Carolina.”

“That explains the accent, which I like.”

Gail laughed. “To me, ya’ll have accents.”

I laughed. “I imagine we do. So what brought you to Michigan?”

“Politics mostly.”

I raised an eyebrow; Gail continued:

“The Dixiecrats are against civil rights.”

“So your dad’s a liberal?”

“No, not really. He’s a Baptist who believes in equal rights. It didn’t hurt that job opportunities here are greater.”

“What’s he do?”

“He works on the assembly line at the Rouge Plant. He hates it, fastening seats into cars. But the wages are good, and the union watches out for him.”

“Dearborn is quite a drive from here.”

“South Lyon is a lot like our home town.”

I nodded. “You like it here then?”

“So far. The kids are friendlier than I thought they’d be.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“What about your dad? What does he do?”

“He’s self-employed. The town’s best auto mechanic. He has a shop in our barn.”

“Ya’all own a farm?”

I grinned. “Just my dad. A small parcel just west of town.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Not at all. I like your accent.”

“I just want to fit in.”

“Why would you want to fit in? Different is good. It gets you noticed. Those who achieve greatness are usually different.”

“I guess that never occurred to me.”

“But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

We went silent a moment. It was a silence that, in the months ahead, wouldn’t be nearly so uncomfortable as we got to know one another. It was the silence that comes with the comfort of simply being in the company of a loved one.

“I should be going,” Gail finally said.

“Me, too. But before we go, I should get your address so I can pick you up for the dance.”

“You drive?”

“I’ve been driving for two years, with my mom and dad of course. I don’t yet have my license, but I think I can get Dad to let me drive to the dance.”

“I’m not sure my dad would approve.”

“Does he have to know?”

“I won’t lie to him.”

“I understand. Then I’ll meet you at the dance.”

I watched Gail scribble her phone number onto a piece of paper; she handed it to me and I glanced at it, the treasure that it was. I thought her penmanship was as exquisite as her face.

“Thanks,” I said. “Oh, and here’s my phone number.”

I scribbled it onto a piece of paper and handed it to her, but before she could take it, I withdrew it.

“How’s your daddy feel about you calling boys?” I asked with a grin.

“I don’t know,” Gail said. She looked startled. “It’s never come up before.”

“Well, you should have it in case an emergency comes up and you can’t make it.”

“Absolutely,” she said, smiling.

“If I don’t see you around school tomorrow, I’ll see you at seven.”

“It’s a date,” she said with a smile.

I left for home feeling as if I’d just taken the checkered flag.

“I’ve never danced with a boy before,” Gail whispered in my ear as the band played Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite, a Spaniels song that was popular. I couldn’t believe how wonderful Gail felt in my embrace.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I haven’t either.”

Gail laughed, the sound tuneful.

“You’re funny,” she said.

“Well, looks aren’t everything.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Although I have to say you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you.”

When the song came to end we made our way to the punch bowl.

“You know,” Gail said after taking a sip, “you’re my first date.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“Not to call you a liar, but I find that hard to believe.”

“Oh, I’ve been asked once or twice.”

“Only once or twice?”

“Okay, several times. But I’m very choosy.”

“Huh,” I said, with a grin. “And here I thought I’d done the choosing.”

“I could’ve turned you down, you know.”

“True enough. So how come you said ‘yes?’”

Gail blushed and looked down.

“Oh, my, be still my beating heart,” I said. “Do you do that often?”

“What?” she asked, looking up at me again.

“Blush.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Well, I think it suits you. I hope it’s something you’ll do only for me.”

Gail smiled and blushed a deeper shade. I came to her rescue—that’s who I was in my youth, a rescuer.

“So why did you say ‘yes?’”

“Promise me you won’t laugh?”

“Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up my right hand, palm out.

“I liked the way you looked at me yesterday, when you asked.”

“How was I supposed to look at you?”

“I’m not expressing myself well.”

“That’s okay; I have that effect on people.”

Gail laughed. “I imagine you do.” And then, “It was obvious when you looked at me you liked what you saw. But you were respectful.”

“Why wouldn’t I be respectful?”

“You didn’t leer at me.”

“Oh. My turn to apologize. Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.”

“Telling me I looked like Gail Russell didn’t hurt your cause.”

“I’m very honest,” I said.

“And …”

“Uh-oh, there’s an ‘and?’”

“I’ve seen you around school and you seem one of the better boys.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What, that you’re one of the better boys?”

“No, that you’ve seen me around school. That would mean I’ve missed seeing you, and I can’t believe that.”

“Do you always flirt so outrageously?”

“Only with you.”

“Good answer.”

Just then the band segued into Honey Hush, a Joe Turner song that had been popular in 1953.

“Come on,” I said, taking Gail’s hand. “Let’s dance.”

The evening came to an end all too soon. We danced and talked and got to know each other, and liked what we learned.

We held hands as we made our way across the parking lot to where her dad sat behind the wheel of his idling car—a 1950 Ford Zephyr Six.

We stopped about ten feet from the Zephyr Six to look at each other; I held both of Gail’s hands in mine.

“What I wouldn’t give to kiss you,” I said.

“Why Alex Król, what kind of girl do you take me for?” Gail said with a smile.

“The kind I’d like to kiss.”

Gail grew serious. “I know,” she said, glancing at her father, seated in the car with his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel. Perhaps he knew this day had been coming, when his little girl would grow up to meet the young man who might take his place.

Gail raised herself up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek.

“Another time, I promise,” she whispered. Then she gave me a brief hug, her breasts feeling firm against me, and made her way toward her father’s car.

“How come I never see you have any visitors?”

Kelly was the young nurse aide who came from the hospice in the evenings to take my vitals. Young. It’s a relative term: when you reach sixty, everybody seems young. Maybe it’s partly to do with the fact you’ve for­gotten what’s it like to be young. Then there’s the lyric in Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man: “Some people see through the eyes of the old before they ever get a look at the young.” But then, I’m hardly an innocent man. Anyway, I recall a comedy routine I’d seen years ago, maybe when I’d been in my early thirties. It might’ve been a George Carlin routine but I can’t be certain—hell, I’m not certain of a lot things since I started get­ting sicker. The routine: You become twenty-one, turn thirty; you push forty and reach fifty. After that it’s all downhill: you make it to sixty, building up speed until, if you’re fortunate, you hit seventy. Well, I’d made it to sixty but I’d never hit seventy. The routine finished with each day in your eighties being a complete cycle unto itself—hitting lunch, turning 4:30, and, finally, reaching bedtime. It was funny then; not so much now.

In her late twenties, tallish and slender, I deemed Kelly, by my younger standards, to be rather plain, wearing no makeup and typically pulling her hair back. I guessed, with her hair back, it made her job easier. Still, she had a pleasant face, and when she smiled, she smiled with her eyes. She was kind to me, attentive, and genuinely seemed to care, making small talk that didn’t seem small. Unlike Lynn, her counter­part, who came each morning. Perhaps, because of Lynn’s age—I guessed her to be in her early fifties—she’d seen it all and was therefore suffering burnout. Not that she didn’t do her job; it was just in the way by which she went about it. Lynn was clinical, asking only the questions she needed to ask regarding my condi­tion and how I was feeling. I once asked her to have a cup of coffee and sit with me while I had breakfast—I’d never cared much for eating alone, a dislike that had manifested itself greatly since I’d become house-ridden—but she told me she had to keep to her sche­dule; I couldn’t fault her for that.

 “Because,” I said, “this is our time together, Kelly.”

She laughed in that tuneful way of all women whose origins come from Ireland. A woman from my past, I can’t recall who but it may have been someone I’d hurt, would claim Kelly’s laugh was forced, that she was laughing only from obligation or was laughing at me, and that inside she was probably thinking, asshole. I didn’t think it was forced for either of those reasons, or out of pity for a dying old man. Nor did I think she thought me an asshole.

“You know, your morning counterpart, Nurse Ratched, seems in a hurry to be on her way and won’t even have a cup of coffee with me.”

“Nurse Ratched?”

“Jack Nicholson’s tormentor in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I said. “A movie from the seventies. Won like, five Academy Awards. But I guess that was just a little before your time. Lynn,” I thought to add.

 “Well,” Kelly said, “don’t be too hard on her. She has her whole day ahead of her and really must try to stay on schedule. I’m fortunate that you’re my last patient.”

I’m fortunate, her words echoed. Not you’re fortu­nate.

“That must be it.”

“Seriously,” she said. “Don’t you have family—children or a brother or a sister—friends who come to visit?”

“I have no family, no love interest, no life-long partner I can trust to not abandon me as she waits for me to abandon her. I may once have had a sister, but my memory sometimes plays tricks on me these days. If I did we were never close. I’ve an old friend who comes to visit every day, after you’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Whatever for? It’s by choice and by way of the life I chose to live.”

“Everyone should have someone,” she said, and I recalled a time in my life when I’d felt the same way. Maybe I still felt that way—everyone should. But some of us manage to make it out of this life without some­one.

On a whim I asked if she could stay while I ate my dinner. Meals on Wheels was now bringing me my three squares and I didn’t really have anything to share but bottled water out of my refrigerator or a cup of tea.

Kelly looked uncertain; perhaps it went against hospice regulations. But something else mingled in her mien, which I would later, when I was alone, identify as pity. After a moment, to my surprise, relief and pleasure, she agreed to a cup of tea.

“Thanks,” I said.

As I filled the kettle with water, Kelly told me she liked the ring that I wore.

“It was a gift,” I said, “from a former girlfriend who was of Latvian descent.” I wondered why my memory managed to hold onto this particular recollec­tion—Judy had been the gifter of the ring. In which side of the brain did regret reside? Apparently the can­cer had not yet assailed that side. “Legend has it that a ruler of Latvia—king, or regent or whatever they called them several hundred years ago—was deposed by some invading country. Riga is an important port city on the Baltic Sea. He wore a ring just like this one. He fled and to prevent his capture, all the men in Latvia took to wearing a ring just like it, to make his capture more difficult—sort of a Spartacus thing.”

“A cool legend,” Kelly said, and I wondered if she knew who Spartacus had been, if she’d seen the movie.

“And they call Poles dumb,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Wouldn’t have been easier if he’d just taken his off?”

Kelly laughed.

While we waited for the water to boil, I asked: “Are you happy, Kelly?”

If my question surprised her, she didn’t show it.

“I think so. Why do you ask?”

“Just an observation. You seem a very pleasant sort and very happy in your work.”

“I am. I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little girl.”

“You’re very lucky in that you heard your calling early. Some people never really hear it and go through life in a reactive fashion.”

“That’s sad,” she said, as if this were a revelation.

“Yes, it is.” Then, “Are you married, Kelly?” She looked away, seemingly embarrassed, and so I added, “I’m not asking for myself you understand. I mean, surely you know there’s no future with me?”

Kelly met my eyes, smiled and told me she wasn’t married.

I poured the hot water into a ceramic teacup with a colorful floral pattern on its sides. The cup had a sort of colander sleeve that fit inside with holes in the bottom and sides for use with loose tea; I had but Twinings peppermint tea bags. The peppermint was soothing to my irritable bowel. Irritable was an understatement. These days it was downright outraged, despite eating what my doctor had prescribed as a “bland” diet. I ate only a bite or two of any meal and as a result my weight had dropped to under one-hundred-seventy pounds, a weight I hadn’t seen since I’d turned twenty. I dipped the teabag into the cup a half dozen times and then put the lid on the cup. It, too, had a floral pattern.

“That’s a beautiful cup,” Kelly said.

“It belonged to my mother.” I glanced at my watch. “Give it three or four minutes to steep. Longer if you like it stronger. Honey?”

“A large dollop of cream, if you have any.”

“Just skim milk.”

“That’s fine.”

I retrieved the milk from the refrigerator and sat down across the kitchen table from Kelly.

“Anyone special in your life?” I asked and Kelly again looked away, so I ventured, “From the way you said that I’d venture you’ve recently had your heart bruised.”

Kelly’s eyes teared up and I apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring up any pain.” I pushed a box of Kleenex across the table to her. I had boxes all over the house—kitchen, bedroom, living room—since my sinuses seemed to run constantly, like the bathroom faucet I figured to let go on dripping for the new owner to fix.

“That’s okay,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “I met someone a few months ago, a nice guy, but recently he’s been kind of distant. I think he may be getting ready to break up with me.”

“Then he’s a fool.”

“Thank you. You’re a nice man.”

“You’ll get over him,” I said, thinking, If you only knew, Kelly. “And I expect you’ll find a terrific young man because you’re a terrific young woman.”

“Thanks,” she said, managing a smile that sud­denly made her look, well, terrific. At some point, I couldn’t recall when, she’d let loose her hair, making her look downright pretty.

“You’re welcome. Look, you want my dinner? My appetite isn’t so good tonight.”

“No, thank you, but you should have a couple of bites at least. You’ve lost a lot of weight, even in the last week.”

“Yeah, the twenty pounds I couldn’t lose the last ten years, and now it’s dropping like the hygrometer in my humidor when I forget to fill it with solution.”

Kelly laughed musically and I wondered if she even knew what a hygrometer might be. I forced my­self to take a bite of the side dish, unadorned rice, while she removed the lid from her teacup, placed it on a saucer and added some skim milk, all before I realized I’d forgotten to check my watch.

“That book in the other room,” she asked, “When Legend Becomes Myth? Is that your name I saw on the cover?”

“Guilty. It’s a proof copy.”

“What’s it about?”

I told her.

“It sounds intriguing.”

I laughed. “That sounds real politically correct. Very non-committal.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, really.” Then she said, “A proof copy? That means it’s not available for e-readers?”

“Correct.”

“I’d love to read it. When will it be available?”

“Early May.”

Kelly looked crestfallen; but her disappointment seemed for me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She knew I wouldn’t live to see that day.

“I can let you have that proof copy, if you’d like.

“Really?”

“I approved it several weeks ago, after having poured over it a half-dozen times and finding no errors. Besides, there comes a time when, where revi­sions are concerned, a writer must let his work go.”

“But—”

“Trust me. I have no use for it.”

“Would you inscribe it for me?”

I nodded and grinned. “Already, I have a fan.”

Kelly smiled and told me she needed to get going. She’d finished her tea and I hadn’t even been aware she’d been drinking it.

“Listen,” I said as I got up and reached for her empty teacup. “I want you to take this, too.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“I won’t take no for an answer. My mother would want you to have it and we both know you’ll take good care of it.”

As I rinsed the cup the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Kelly said.

A few moments later I brought the teacup into the living room to find Kelly introducing herself to Patrick. He’d been good about visiting me, at times bringing along Shelly, since I’d lost my driving privileges the result of the hallucinations I started having a couple weeks ago. Shortly thereafter my doctor informed me the cancer had likely spread to my brain and so I’d given up driving. The last thing I wanted was to jeopardize other motorists. The news brought to mind a fairly recent Mose Allison blues tune, My Brain. In­itially, his brain, a “cool little cluster,” is “steady working long as you keep that coffee perking;” but by the end of the tune, the result of “losing twelve hun­dred neurons every hour,” he’s soon to become “dumbfounded.” Dumbfounded: that’s where I was heading; soon after I could expect to become as func­tion­al as a stalk of celery, and about as interesting looking. Funny, the things that came to mind as my memory fell apart; easily, with no effort, they just popped up.

 “Hi, Patrick,” I said, handing Kelly the cup, and then I stepped over to the coffee table where When Legend Becomes Myth sat. I picked it up along with the pen that sat on the morning Free Press crossword puz­zle. That’s right, I work crosswords in ink, arrogant bastard that I am. Sadly, the crossword was unfinished. More and more, the clues were becoming meaningless to me. “Do me a favor, Patrick. Call the Freep in the morning and cancel my subscription, otherwise I’ll forget to do it.”

“Sure,” he said.

I scribbled a few words on the title page of Legend, signed it and handed it to Kelly. She of course opened it to where I’d written my inscription. A moment later she hugged me and left, obviously overcome with emotion.

“What was that all about,” Patrick asked when she’d gone.

“Sweet kid. Going through a tough time.”

Patrick forced himself to chuckle, a sound I hadn’t heard from him since I told him the news several months ago.

“I say something funny?”

“You’re dying and she’s going through a tough time?”

“Dying is not so tough. You’ll understand that when it comes your time, which hopefully won’t be for a long time. Sit down,” I added as I dropped to the sofa.

“How are you doing?” Patrick asked.

“Great. I finally dropped the weight I’ve been meaning to lose. Another ten pounds and I’ll be able to fit into the sport coat I wore to homecoming.”

“I should be so lucky,” he said. “You look great.”

He was lying but I didn’t tell him that. I knew I looked like death chilled over: gaunt, ashen. As bad days went, this had been a particularly good one; that Kelly had agreed to share a cup of tea with me had been the highlight. I had no idea what tomorrow might bring other than a few hours closer to the inevitable.

“Call me tomorrow, will you?” I asked. “I want to call my lawyer and make a change to my will. I want to leave my royalties to the hospice. They’re nonprofit. I know my insurance is paying most of the bill, but I want to give a little something extra back to them for the trouble I’ve put them through. I’ll need you to drive me over to his office, too, to sign the new papers. Oh, and I’ll likely need you to remind me that I want to do that.”

“Sure.” Patrick then went silent, which he’d been prone to do the sicker I became, as if he didn’t know what to say to a dying man. I resented him for that, not a lot, but a little. It’s okay, I think, for someone to re­sent a friend once in a while. Yet a dying man wants a sense of normalcy to the time he has left, some dis­trac­tion; but I said nothing to him. I can’t say I’d act any differently were our roles reversed.

“There’s something else I wanted to tell you,” I said, rummaging through the grab bag my once cool little cluster brain had become. “Oh, yeah. Take my humidor with you when you leave tonight. I know you’ve had your eye on it since you saw it. It’s got nearly fifty sticks in it. Far more than I’ll ever be able to smoke in what’s left of my lifetime.”

“Okay,” was all Patrick managed.

We then watched the hockey game for a while. The Wings were playing the Blackhawks at Joe Louis Arena and the Hawks were ahead when Patrick finally called it a night shortly after nine, taking with him my humi­dor, which he needed to remind me I’d given him. Un­fortunately for Patrick, he missed a Wings comeback—a goal scored in overtime.

I turned off the TV and went to my den to sketch. I’d taken it up a year or so ago, out of boredom. I’d done some sketching when I was a lad—nothing I ever kept, save for a Mother’s Day card I’d made for my mother that I came across while I’d been going through her belongings after she’d passed on. It was a drawing of a log cabin in the woods. I couldn’t remember how old I’d been, but the perspective was slightly off, so I must’ve been fairly young.

When I took it up again I sketched exclusively landscapes; I’d never been very good at portraits, but tonight I made an exception. For some reason Kelly’s image, as she’d taken my blood pressure, had stayed with me: her youthful innocence, prior to my learning of her bruised heart, and compassion had imprinted itself on some part of my brain left untouched by my cancer, perhaps the creative part—was that the left side or the right? It didn’t matter.

An hour later I sat looking at the result—the pers­pective was good and I’d captured her expression as well as I’d recalled it and I saw in my work what I’d seen in Kelly during the week I’d known her.

By the time I went to bed I’d forgotten that Patrick had come to visit, that we’d watched the hockey game, that the Wings had won in OT, that I’d given Patrick my humidor, that I’d ever owned one.

The next morning Patrick called to remind me to call my lawyer and why. He told me he had the day off and could take me to sign the papers if they could be prepared today. I called my lawyer immediately, be­fore I finished my cup of coffee, so I wouldn’t forget.

“What about the rest of your estate?” Frank asked me through the phone.

I waited a moment, became frantic; then I con­sented: “I’m sorry, Frank, my memory is spotty. Who gets it now?”

“Defenders of Wildlife. To protect the wolves in Wyoming and Alaska.”

“That’s right,” I said. I’d originally had my entire estate going to Defenders of Wildlife because I thought it horrendous what they were doing to wolves, aerial shootings, leaving poisoned meat for them to ingest, killing pregnant females and shooting pups in their dens—all because they were doing what they do: sur­viving on instinct, taking down a few head of cattle. All about the almighty dollar. That I was a canine kind of guy was secondary; I’d given up on man as a species to which I wanted to leave anything. Kelly had left me hope that there were some good people left in the world, so I wanted to give something back to the hos­pice for whom she worked. I thought a moment about leaving the remainder of my estate to the hospice, but in the end decided to leave it to the wolves: they needed protection.

Then I called Patrick and asked him if he could take me to the lawyer’s office after lunch to sign the papers.

After we hung up I noticed a dark rectangle on my liquor cabinet and wondered what was missing.

Patrick brought me home and stayed with me until the aide from hospice came. She told me her name and in­formed me that Kelly had been delayed by another patient and couldn’t come tonight; I stayed myself from asking who Kelly was.

The aide (already I’d forgotten her name) left and Patrick also left a short time later. Sadly, Patrick had little to contribute to conversation; but I forgave him. I found I, too, had little I wanted to discuss. I was so tired.

In my den I came across the sketch I’d forgotten I’d done the previous night and spent several minutes walking from room to room, sketchbook in hand, as if I might discover her name in one of them.

There was a woman, long ago—she had been my first lover although I couldn’t recall her name. We were together only three times. I felt no disappointment when she broke it off with me so I know I didn’t love her, or she me.

Something in the sketch reminded me of that woman from so many years ago, but it wasn’t her.

I struck my forehead with the flat of my hand, as if I could jar some memory from out of the void my brain had become.

Why is she haunting me, tormenting me now?

I looked more closely at the sketch. The paper was off white, but it didn’t show signs of aging, no yel­lowing.

No, the sketch isn’t of that woman.

Whoever she was, she was beautiful.

The next morning a stranger let herself into my house, telling me she was from hospice and that her name was Lynn. She startled me, as I’d been asleep. She assured me she was no burglar and had let herself into my house using the key I’d given her.

She took my vitals and asked a few questions, and then asked me to get up. I couldn’t get out of bed. She made a phone call, but I never knew to whom or why; by then I’d slipped into a coma, from which I never re­gained consciousness.

Second Decade, Age 11

“Your son has a hernia,” the doctor told my mother.

I’d noticed a bulge in my abdomen, just above the root of my penis a few weeks ago. It was accompanied by bloating and painful gas buildup that went away after I pushed the bulge back and lay horizontal for a while.

“What?” my mother said. “But how?”

The doctor shrugged and said, “It might be congenital.”

“What’s congenital?” I asked. It sounded pretty serious.

“You might’ve been born with a weakness,” he explained. “Or it might’ve been the result of trauma. Have you sustained an injury to your groin?”

I recalled Francine’s kicks to my balls but said nothing.

My mother scheduled surgery for me the following Monday.

My room was in Art Centre Hospital on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

The race riots were in full bloom in 1967 and from my first floor room I watched armed National Guard troops drive past my window in jeeps.

Mom left (Dad had stayed home) just before Ed Sullivan came on, telling me, “Good night, honey. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” She sounded somewhat worried herself, although I wasn’t. This was my first night away from home; it was an adventure.

A short time later a male intern came in with a chrome bowl and a straight razor and told me it was time for my shave.

“I’m eleven,” I said. “I don’t shave.”

He grinned and told me to raise my hospital gown.

With that he proceeded to lather up my genitals with soap and shave my balls.

I was on edge as I heard the rasp of the blade against my testicles. Rodney Dangerfield was doing a standup act on the TV. He told a joke about being held up by a mugger with a knife. “I could tell it wasn’t a professional job,” he said. “There was butter on it.” I heard the intern chuckle, which left me feeling even testier over my predicament.

The intern left and a few minutes later another intern came in, a plump black woman.

“Time for your enema,” she said.

“What’s an enema?”

“I put this,” she told me, holding up a plastic nozzle attached to a hose that was in turn attached to a bag of what appeared to be soapy water, “into your backside and release the contents of this bag into your colon.”

My eyes got the size of silver dollars, prompting the intern to laugh. I watched her immense breasts shake from the ferocity of her laugh, its pitch that of a baritone.

“Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s to clean out your colon before surgery. Now roll over onto your side.

I did as I was told and a moment later, feeling violated, felt the nozzle inserted into my rectum, the flood of the water felt warm as my colon expanded to accommodate it.

“Almost there,” the intern said; I felt as if my colon were about to explode.

A moment later she withdrew the nozzle and told me to head to the bathroom to release the water. Like I needed to be told.

I raced to the bathroom and sat just in the nick of time, releasing the water, and everything that accompanied it, into the cold porcelain.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes as my bowels emptied in sequential movements—like the orchestra to which my parents had taken me and Francine over the summer: long classical pieces played in “movements.” Every time I thought they were done playing they launched into another movement. Each time I felt I was done, I’d lean forward to wipe my backside only to feel yet another movement.

I finally made it back to my bed wondering what new dread might await me next in this little shop of horrors.

My surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, and a nurse came in first thing to give me a shot of something, which left me feeling groggy.

A short time later my bed was wheeled out of my room and toward the operating room. My mother walked alongside me with her hand on top of mine.

At the door to the operating room my mother again reassured me that everything was going to be all right. I was eleven and had no clue as to the dangers of surgery. I was about to be cut open and couldn’t wait to tell my buddies of the ordeal, sans the shave and the enema parts. Like a soldier wounded in a war I intended to bear my scar proudly.

I was wheeled under the brightest lights I’d ever seen and a mask was put over my face; a voice told me to count backward from one hundred. I got to ninety-seven and …

… the next thing I heard was the sound of a child wailing. It wasn’t me. My lower abdomen, on the right side, felt as if it were on fire. It seared.

A mask covered my face and my tongue was as dry and as rough as a Brillo pad right out of the box, before it’s been soaked in water. I tried to roll over onto my left side but found myself restrained.

The screaming child, somewhere to my right, continued to exercise its pipes. Shut-up, I thought, and then tried to work my mouth around the words, to give voice to my annoyance; it resisted my best efforts and what came out sounded as if it were mired in oatmeal.

I breathed deep from the mask several times, which must’ve been oxygen, and my head began to clear.

The scream came again and I told it to shut-up again; the scream ignored me and I heard a voice, although I could make out no words, try to placate the screaming voice.

I waited for what could’ve been minutes, months or a millennium.

Finally hands removed the mask from my face and a moment later I felt the bed on which I lay pushed into motion.

I was brought back to my room, the gurney on which I lay aligned with my bed and I tried to roll over onto my bed. Two hands pushed me back and two interns lifted me, by the sheet under me, and slid me over onto my bed.

A voice told me I was to remain on my back. I asked for a drink of water and was denied.

My mother was at my side; she applied a wet washrag wrapped around some ice chips to my lips—it felt blessedly cool. I sucked on the rag to moisten my tongue and drifted off into unconsciousness.

Some time later, it might have been minutes, months or a millennium, I awoke and tried to roll over; my abdomen was a flaming sword of agony. Hands stopped me yet again. The hands may have belonged to my mother. I heard her voice tell me I had to remain on my back or I would become ill, the effects of the anesthetic.

“But I want to roll over on my side,” I managed to say, although I couldn’t be certain if anyone understood me. I had no idea why I wanted to roll over. The body wants what the body wants.

I heard voices but the words meant little to me. A moment later I felt a pillow pushed under my right hip; it was enough to give me the illusion of being off my back and I settled back into slumber.

By late afternoon the worst of the anesthetic wore off and I was able to sit up. An intern brought me some cottage cheese in a small cereal bowl. I ate three or four spoonfuls and promptly threw it up; for my effort the stitches holding my abdomen together pulled and the resulting pain was excruciating. For the remainder of the day I sipped grape juice and water.

Mom stayed until visiting hours ended. We talked little as I drifted in and out of restless sleep.

I awoke in a darkened room; my mother had left for the night. Outside my room I heard footsteps, but they passed my door.

Outside my window, on Woodward Avenue, a jeep with armed troops drove by and I imagined myself in a hospital in Europe during the war. I’d been wounded and had had field surgery to remove a bullet and had been brought to some small town in France to recover. I was proud that I’d made it through without once crying.

It occurred to me that my dad hadn’t come to visit and I was disappointed that he couldn’t witness how tough I was.

Breakfast was brought in about eight the next morning: oatmeal and toast. My abdomen still hurt but I was ready to go home.

My mother showed up shortly after nine. A short time later a nurse came in to take my vitals. After she finished she asked if I’d had a bowel movement.

“No,” I said.

“You have to have one before we can release you,” she told me with raised eyebrows.

“But why?”

“Hospital policy.”

She left and I looked at my mother.

“I haven’t had anything to eat since Sunday night, other than breakfast this morning. They gave me an enema Sunday night to clean me out. I can’t go.”

“Well, try, honey.”

I hobbled to the bathroom and sat. I felt no urge because I had nothing in me. I strained but was only rewarded with pain as my stitches strained to hold me together.

After about twenty minutes I got up and returned to my bed and shook my head.

The nurse returned to ask if I’d had any success.

“No.”

“If you don’t go we’ll have to give you another enema.”

I felt my rectum clinch. Like threats were going to help.

Lunch was brought in around noon: more cottage cheese. Afterward, I sat on the throne again but no reward was forthcoming.

Nurse: “Have you…?”

Me: “No.”

“Here,” she said, handing me a soft capsule that was bullet-shaped.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A suppository. It’ll help you go.”

When I started to put the suppository into my mouth she stopped me.

“No, it goes into your backside.”

I looked at the capsule in the palm of my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you …?”

She had me roll onto my side and a moment later I felt her finger push the suppository into my rectum.

It didn’t take long for it to work its magic; within ten minutes I hit the bathroom and had a full and satisfying bowel movement.

I felt a little woozy on the drive home; apparently the anesthetic hadn’t yet fully worn off.

“It was strange,” I told my mother.

“What was?” she asked.

“I remember being wheeled into the operating room, under these bright lights. Then they put a mask on me and told me to count backward from a hundred. I didn’t get very far. The next thing I remember was waking up. It wasn’t like sleep though. Even while asleep there’s a sense of time passing. This … this was like being robbed of an hour of my life. It’s like it never happened.”

“It was the anesthetic,” she said. “I’m proud of you. You took this like a trooper.”

After a moment I asked why Dad hadn’t come to visit me.

“Your father has been working a lot of hours,” she said. “He’s been tired.”

I was too young to understand she was making excuses for him.

“Why did you put up with her torment for so long?” he asked.

“I earned it,” I said.

“But did you deserve it?”

“Is there a difference?”

“You may have earned her wrath by your betrayal; but through your contrition you deserved her forgiveness.”

“You know what was in my heart.”

Although my statement was not intended as a question, I felt the Other nod.

“Then you know I didn’t love Judy.”

“That you stayed with her as long as you did, tried to make it right, would seem to indicate otherwise.”

“I only wanted to love her, but I never loved her. How could I? Our relationship developed into something unhealthy—if ever it was healthy. I was driven to win her forgiveness, while she … I don’t know. Maybe she became addicted to berating me.”

The Other seemed to ignore my psycho-babble.

“You wanted to love her body as you loved Jovita’s.”

I cringed; although inadvertent, there seemed, to me, something critical in the Other’s simple evaluation, or was it intended as a correction to my assessment?

“Maybe I did,” I said. “But I couldn’t love her, her body notwithstanding, not as long as she continued to hound me.”

“And you wished you could have loved Jovita for more than just her body, perhaps as you loved Judy,” the Other finished, and I realized this wasn’t so much a dialogue as a rehash of an introspection I’d had many times while I’d been alive, before I finally let Judy go; I went along with it:

“Proof of what Judy always accused me—that I compartmentalized women. Some I saw as body parts and others for their intellect. I wanted to screw the body parts and discuss politics, religion, movies, books and my broken hearts with the others.”

“What became of Jovita?”

“I tried to get in touch with her after I left Judy, but she didn’t return my phone calls, ignored my invitation to connect on Facebook.”

“It would seem she didn’t love you as she claimed.”

“What, you thought she did? She was the other woman. Did you really think she would risk that another woman would take her place in my life as ‘the other woman?’”

“It would seem that Megan was right,” the Other said, changing direction. It was good at that, changing direction.

“Megan?” This wasn’t part of any of my previous private introspections. “Megan who?”

“The woman from the fragrance counter at Hudson’s who befriended you after your mother’s death.”

“Oh, Megan.” I’d forgotten about Megan after I moved from my home town and hadn’t thought of her in the millennia since my death. I’d leaned on her in my grief and discussed with her my predilection for eye candy in the aftermath of Joy (that’s right, another “J” woman), but never considered her as a sexual partner (not just because her first name started with “M”—she was ten years my senior and a flaming redhead; therefore she’d fallen into that latter “compartment” of women).

“Didn’t she tell you,” the Other said, “that all body parts are just that, body parts?”

“I recall her telling me that,” I said.

“One pussy on the end of a pecker feels pretty much the same as any other pussy.”

I was startled by the Other’s vulgarity, far more than I was when Megan had put forth that same sentiment.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” I said, “although I resented her speaking from the masculine perspective. Putting the shoe on the other foot, I never met a woman to whom size didn’t matter.”

“Maybe that was because they found you well-endowed.”

“Or I knew how to use what I had,” I said. I was growing uncomfortable with this discussion of peckers and pussies alike. “But how would I know? Most women fake their orgasms most of the time.”

“So Judy told you.”

“I read the studies. She was right about that. And I was smart enough to know that no woman would ever suggest to her man that he should buy the oriental-sized box of condoms. But all that’s beside the point. What of everything that takes place before the mating ritual? We must first be attracted to a partner, yes?”

“There are many reasons for attraction.”

“Initially,” I said in my defense, “from across the room—before you find out she voted Democratic in the last presidential election, before you learn she’s a member of NOW and bashes men on her blog, that she’s a vegan, that she detests sports and sees athletes as sweaty with little between the ears, that she prefers chardonnay to reds, or that she’s high maintenance and looking for a bad boy in need of fixing (not what you do to the family canine) and spent years trying to change her previous boyfriend only to dump him in the end for not being the man she met—it’s appearance, chemistry, pheromones, animal magnetism, whatever, that first catches your eye. It’s no different in the animal kingdom. The bird with the most colorful plumage draws the most attention.”

“And yet many homely, overweight people find a partner.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked. “So I was more visual than some men. I wasn’t the only sixteen-year-old kid with a Farah Fawcett poster on the back of my bedroom door.”

“I only meant that there is someone for everyone.”

“Unless you’re me,” I said. And then, “Many people lower their standards rather than risk being alone.”

“Or,” the Other said, “They see the inner beauty of their partner.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Like Judy had so much of that.”

“She was once the other woman in a love triangle, was she not?”

“So what if she was?”

“Perhaps that, in part, helped to fuel her anger toward you.”

“Who cares? She’s not here to discuss her issues. All I know is she had a never ending supply of vitriol. She harbored as much resentment and anger two years after the fact as she did the day she made me get a cell phone.”

“And you felt you deserved her anger.”

“I was responsible for putting it there.”

“Was she not accountable, for keeping her anger alive?”

“What difference does it make? I was to blame but she was at fault; or maybe it was the other way around. She never forgot and she certainly never forgave, despite telling me many times that she had. More lies. When I was caught I confessed, told the truth, that Jovita screwed like a porn star. Those truths hurt, more than had I lied. But she insisted on the truth, as did I from her. But I was playing by her rules and wasn’t allowed to suggest amendments or expect fair play. I may have abused her trust by having an affair, but what was her treatment of me if not abuse?”

“Actions speak louder than words,” the Other said.

I ignored the pilfered maxim.

“You asked me earlier why I put up with her torment for as long as I did. A better question is why did she torment me for as long as she did?”

“This isn’t about her.”

“You sound like a shrink I once had.”

“I’m your higher self. I care not about her.”

“Wow,” I said. “And to think I once paid for someone to tell me that.”

“You’re a sarcastic snipe, you know that?” the Other said, before adding, “I suspect that she tormented you for as long as she did because you allowed her to.”

“So I’m not only to blame for cheating on her, I’m to blame for her treatment of me because I didn’t put a stop to it? I’m a patsy no matter what I do. Is it any wonder I don’t want to go back for more?”

“Did you not deserve her forgiveness?”

“I wanted her forgiveness,” I said. “I learned that life has little to do with deserving. Else babies wouldn’t be born to crack addicts or HIV positive.”

The Other remained mute and I wondered if it might be assessing whether I deserved another timeout.

“If my infidelity earned her wrath,” I said, “I tried to earn her forgiveness as well as her trust. In the end, when I could no longer take her abuse and walked, she blamed me for that, too. Probably because I’d removed from her, in one fell swoop, the source of her rage as well as the object on which she could vent it.”

“And in the ten years that remained of your life, you never again risked your heart to love.”

“That was a choice and are you going to argue that it wasn’t the right choice?”

“I only wish to understand, not argue.”

“How many times did I hear that from Judy, that she didn’t wish to argue? Usually just before the storm hit.”

“Why did you choose not to love again?”

“Because I no longer believed in love, not in the manner I did as a boy, before I discovered sex. Like many young men, I confused sex with love and never outgrew it. By the time I understood the difference, it was too late for me.”

“It’s never too late for love.”

I ignored the Other’s adage; it was plagiarized anyway. “I’d always believed I’d rather be alone alone than alone with the wrong person.”

“Judy was the wrong person?”

“Maybe she wasn’t the wrong person, at least not until she discovered my affair. But she wasn’t the right person either, not any more than my wife or any of the other women in my life were right. And before you blame me for not being the right person for them, a lot of wrong-matched couples find a semblance of happiness. Need I also remind you that I worked hard toward self-improvement, to become the right person. What good is being the right person when everyone else is the wrong person?”

“New Age bullshit,” the Other said.

“You know me well. And since you do, you know I got involved with Judy for the wrong reasons. I was on the rebound. I wasn’t ready and I knew it. I was certain it would never work with Judy, and I made sure it wouldn’t. Save after Jennifer, I spent time after each broken heart trying to assess what went wrong, learning from my mistakes.”

“Why didn’t you take that time after Jennifer?”

“Because I figured I was over thinking everything. The lessons I learned, or thought I’d learned from previous disappointments, never seemed to apply to the next relationship anyway. The next one always brought some new dysfunction into the mix.”

“So you admit to being attracted to broken women.”

“You get to a certain age and you find we’re all broken. It’s part of the human condition. Maybe the crack first appeared in childhood, because your mother never held you enough or didn’t breast feed you, or your father wasn’t nurturing enough, and the crack only widens, gets deeper with age. Which is why the old proverb it’s never too late is but a poet’s deception. At some point you realize you’re never going to uncover the source of the break, so you give up trying. But to answer your question, I figured to take the plunge and wing it for a change. The end result couldn’t be any worse.”

“Yet it was,” the Other said.

“You’re so understanding.”

“Where did you get your sarcasm? It wasn’t from me.”

“From life,” I said. “And you would have me go back for more.”

“Not before I understand the final years of your life.”

“As if you don’t already.”

“More sarcasm.”

“All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?”

—Thomas Bailey Aldrich

“As in the first words?” I said when the Other’s patience won out over my own (the Other might’ve kept me waiting a minute or a millennium for all I knew), although in truth I didn’t utter the words as much as think them; not so much a telepathy as I understood it, but an exchange of thoughts as energy.

“I am your higher self,” the Other said.

“My soul?”

“If it pleases you to think of me as such. You and I are one, and we are one with creation.”

“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,” I said. The Other seemed to find my Beatle-esque evaluation humorous, or so I read in the change in frequency of its energy.

“Quite right,” it said, the vibration of its communication feeling oddly Cockney to my life force; then, with a more familiar Midwestern twang, it added, “We are connected, you and I, through a channel, as I am connected to the Creator. And so, so are you.”

“God?”

“God, yes, but not as you, in life, perceived him.”

“Angry, vengeful, demanding, white robe, long just as white beard and flowing hair.”

“A deity man created in his own image.”

“An image we perhaps need, to keep us in line. Yet over the years man certainly seems to have pushed the envelope with an absent God, like a teen thinking they can pull the wool over their parent’s eyes. Parents more concerned with their careers than with their children.”

The Other, apparently forgoing judgment, said nothing; so I ventured: “Where am I and how long have I been here?”

“You are beyond infinity, a place where time has no meaning.”

I expressed confusion.

“Your last life ended, as you once measured time, many millennia ago.”

“Why the wait? What took you so long to make your presence known to me?”

The Other chuckled and the vibration revealed much to me.

“I was given a timeout?” I asked in disbelief.

“You needed time to reflect, but it was you who took so long. You are, in death, nearly as obstinate—mulish—as you were in life. It was when you concluded that life had won you little recompense in death that I thought you might be open to discussion.”

“My last life?” I asked, going back several lines in our exchange. “I’ve lived others?”

“Many. You are, as am I, or more accurately as are we, immortal.”

As I pondered this the Other continued: “The world is, from the perspective you once knew it, in another ice age. Man as the dominant species is nearly extinct, waiting, as the Neanderthals once did, for another cycle of warmth. When you return, you will perhaps return to the previous cycle, the one from whence you just came, or the one still to come.”

“So we’re time travelers?” I said.

“Not in the Jules Verne sense, no. But we are not bound by time in the sense your corporeal self once was.”

In that moment I understood, without really understanding the how, that past, present and future all existed as one moment, except, apparently, in this place that was “beyond infinity.”

“So I can return as Joan of Arc, a black slave prior to the Civil War, George W. Bush or even Ty Cobb?”

I felt the Other acquiesce.

“And because we are, as you say, beyond infinity, I can return to a future not yet lived?”

“The choice is ours—yours and mine.”

“But do I have to? Return?”

“You are the essence of what you once were—pure energy. The teacup that once was your body was broken when you died, but your life’s quintessence—the tea so to speak—remains. Your energy will be sent back into the lifecycle to exist in another physical form.”

“Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”

While my other self considered this, I furthered my argument: “Life is futile.”

“Life is experience.”

“But why would I wish to return?” I asked.

“It is essential to the Creator, who desires to experience his own existence through his creation, both the good as well as the not so good.”

“You mean the evil.”

“Evil is a creation of man, the result of a lack of love.”

“Still, what’s the point of it all?” I asked, feeling as if the Other were judging me.

“I am beyond judging you,” it said, reminding me that my thoughts were its thoughts. “We are one, and as one we shine or shame.”

I cringed.

“If I truly am immortal, have lived countless lives, what do I gain from returning to the lifecycle ignorant of my previous lives, to be burned at a stake, flogged for my skin color, hazed by teammates envious of my superior talent, reviled as the worst president ever to hold office?”

I recalled reading The Long Embrace, a biography of Raymond Chandler. Author of The Big Sleep, Chandler wrote of L.A. and California: The most of everything—

“The best of nothing,” the Other finished my thought for me. “You forget that I’m privy to every aspect of your life, as well as your every thought.”

“Then you know what Chandler knew: ‘When you constantly change a landscape, you erase the collective memory of a city.’ To force me to return without the collective memories of my previous lives is amoral.”

“Most are anxious to return.” To my disbelief, the Other continued: “To feel the rain on their face, to brave the cold breath of winter in order to appreciate warmth at a fire, to hear the clattering claws of a dog dancing on kitchen linoleum, to hear a child’s laughter, to love—”

“Love is at best transitory,” I argued. “When we find it, if we find it, it slips away, abandoning us when we least expect. If it finds us, we discover it’s not what we want.”

“Love is all there is. It is a choice.”

“Predicated on a feeling.”

“A feeling that was, for you, based on a visual image of body parts.”

I shrank away from the Other’s charge, although no judgment sounded in its tone; it simply stated the truth—not as he saw it, but simply the truth.

“What else do we have to go on, at least initially?” I said. “I was able to turn some heads, even after I turned fifty—until I got sick. At a subconscious level women look for physical signs that a man will be a good provider—broad shoulders, a powerful build—while in return men look for someone with a good childbearing body.” I was not to be untracked: “As for the feeling to which I refer, it often disappears when someone discovers you’re not who they thought you were, or worse, who they wanted you to be.”

If I’d had legs I’d be pacing; I didn’t, so my frustration betrayed itself in the brightness of my essence. I continued with my tirade: “God—the Creator, whatever—sticks us in a shell of flesh and blood where we can view the world from only one perspective, our own, and he expects us to be unselfish, to put the needs of others ahead of our own. Well I did that, more than once, with friends, employers and lovers. And each recipient was only too happy to take what I offered and give little in return. Until they tired of what I gave and then cast me away unwanted.”

“But you gave expecting in return, did you not?”

“Even God isn’t purely altruistic. He expects something from his creation, doesn’t he? Whether it’s to take a knee in deference to his glory or, as you claim, to allow him to experience reality through us, there’s a price to pay for our existence. So what if I expected something in return from the people in my life? It’s a sin to expect to be treated well in return for the good treatment you provide another? ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ yes?”

The Other went silent; I felt something like trepidation fill the void between us, as if it didn’t know how to respond. Then, perhaps in an effort to change tacks, it said, “So you wish to know how returning to the lifecycle can be to your benefit without memories of your previous lives.”

“The memories I can do without,” I said. “I can live without the anger, frustration and shame. It’s some of the more valuable lessons that I’d like to take along with me. To be born with specific wisdoms—knowing certain things without having to attend the school of hard knocks.”

“Isn’t that analogous to cheating?”

“So what if it is if should it make the world a better place in which to live while providing the Creator a higher grade of experience? Wouldn’t that be more akin to the life to which Christ preached we should aspire?” I was trying to deflect, make it sound as if I had the benefit of the greater whole in mind in addition to the Creator; but the Other was silent and I knew my argument had left no impact.

Not knowing what else to say, I added, “All the more reason I’ve experienced enough living, thank you very much.”

“That is not for you to say.”

“So I have no say on the matter.”

“The choice is ours alone.”

“Yours and the Creator’s?”

I felt rather than saw the Other nod and I couldn’t help but feel something patronizing, a touch arrogant, even judgmental in the non-gesture. The Other ignored my exasperation—as in life I came to believe the god in whom I’d grown up believing ignored his creation—like a parent who thinks he knows what’s best for his children: Do as I say not as I do. Vegetables are good for you, I recall my father telling me through lips clenched around a cigarette. Sugar is not, he finished. I wanted to ask him, What about nicotine? But I was young and frightened of my father; yet when I turned 16 I smoked a few cigarettes, even managed to pound back a few beers. Looking back, that I never got caught somehow took some of the fun out it.

Privy to the energy that was my thoughts, the Other said: “Benjamin Franklin said, ‘Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy.’”

It was an adage I’d often quoted in my younger, happier days. Before life beat me down.

“Ben also said that wisdom can be found in wine, freedom in beer; but in water you find only bacteria. God created water; man the former two.” When the Other remained silent, I added, “You don’t really believe that, do you, about beer and God wanting to see us happy?”

“You forget that I have a personal connection with the Creator.”

“So he’s an alkie and part of his twelve-step program is to make me go back but without any of the knowledge and wisdom I may have learned during my previous lives.”

The Other ignored my derision. “You will have a choice in gender and certain other aspects of your next incarnation.”

“Like a role-playing game?” I put forth. “I get to pick attributes like charisma, looks, constitution, luck, and strength?”

I sensed the Other’s amusement and I understood my analogy was spot on.

“I thought God had already experienced a little of life, when he sent his son to earth to be crucified.”

“A parable. God is at the center of the universe wherever he exists—as fauna, flora, as every molecule that composes his creation.”

“Even granite?”

“He exists in everything.”

“And he likes to suffer—or more accurately, like the boy who enjoys frying ants on a hot summer day with his magnifying glass, he likes to see us suffer.”

“He is not responsible for the suffering his creation wreaks upon itself.”

I sighed and shrugged nonexistent shoulders, like a war veteran with a phantom limb.

“I suppose I get it,” I said. “Even pain is preferable to living in a vacuum.”

As if it were already decided that I’d return to the lifecycle, the Other said, “Before you return I need to better understand your previous life.”

“You’re my higher self. You should already know everything you need to know.”

“I’d rather hear it from your perspective.”