Warren Adler's Blog, page 61

Film Option Renewed For "Target Churchill"

We have just renewed the film option for the unpublished book "Target Churchill" which I wrote based on James Humes' original highly researched first draft. Humes is a world wide expert on the life, times, wit and wisdom of Winston Churchill and performs often as a  brilliant Churchill impersonator. The book has been optioned by Kevin Conner a British born director who is working diligently to bring the book to life on the silver screen. It is the 12th book bought or optioned of my work for film and television. The story deals with a fictional assassination attempt on Churchill's life during his famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton Missouri. Plans are being made for publication of the book which I have adapted as a screenplay. Those who have read the novel and the script tell me it is an exciting and authentic depiction of the great Churchill with many historical figures of the times who come to life in the narrative. The director/producer believes that with the success of "The King's Speech" there is an enormous appetite for films from the World War 2 era. Mr. Conner reports keen and growing interest.

A Rant From the Confused

I'm confused.

I listen carefully to what our leaders feed the media. I watch them on television. I read their words on numerous Internet sites. Because I was once in the public relations business I do understand parsing, spin, slant, timing, and story placement.

In fact, I orchestrated it on more than one occasion. It was my job and I understand the mechanics of information manipulation. Indeed, the march of technology has made it even more possible to manipulate masses of people, especially the discouraged young, to rock concert frenzies and protestations. Unfortunately it is a doubled-edged sword.

It has given the disgruntled and oppressed a powerful weapon. It has also empowered the terrorists, jihadists and a vast variety of cultists and anarchists. It has provided mobilizing energy to anyone with a cause, however noble or destructive, in the name of God or the devil.

I have seen how information was managed during all of our wars from World War 2 to the present day. I was a soldier in the Korean War where I served in the Pentagon as the Washington Correspondent for Armed Forces Press service.

During that Pentagon service I attended daily briefings on the course of combat by various military spokesman. The briefings were feckless and transparently self-serving and all of us reporters were in on the spin.

But of all the monumental baloney I have heard in my lifetime, the reasons given for our Libyan military adventure is beyond even feckless. Worse, it is transparently incompetent, wrong headed and, for what my opinion is worth, dangerous to the aspirations of our country.

In a nutshell here is what we have been told by the two highest authorities in our country, the President and the Secretary of State.

We are in the fight to prevent the loony brutal dictator of Libya from killing his own people and paving the way for a new group about which we know absolutely nothing and who could, if that is possible, be worse than the displaced dictator.

Thus, it is now declared policy of our country to go to war to prevent dictators from killing their own people.

Posing behind a tsunami of self-righteous feel good compassion, we are now committed to a world-wide cleansing of all those tin horn, greedy, corrupt dictators who without blinking an eye are perfectly willing to kill their own citizens to remain in power. That would mean we are committed to be the world's disciplinarian, willing to spend the blood of our young people and the treasure of our country on a hopeless mission to destroy human evil. That is hardly an exaggeration,

Under this new plan are we now prepared to send our planes and missiles to punish the leaders of the Syrians, the Saudis, the Yemenites, the Jordanians, the Bahranians, the Iranians, the Ivory Coast dictators, and a bevy of bad actors on all the continents on the planet too numerous to record here?

How can our Secretary of State and the President declare such a policy with a straight face? It is scary and indefensible and is sure to lead to our being sucked in to all the murderous feuds, religious, tribal and secular that plague our planet.

I'm not certain my own outrage is shared by others in our country. I hope so. Indeed, I once believed in the great idea of the United Nations, a caretaker of a united world of free people with the goal of creating a peaceful planet. That dream died years ago.   What a mess that organization proved to be.

Are we in America now committed to take orders from this incompetent Tower of Babel, where most of the power is now concentrated among those corrupt leaders who we are now committed to destroy?

How is it possible that with eyes wide open, we elected people who are so far out of their depth that they are putting all of us at risk of demolition?

It may be that it is time to give voice to the unthinkable. Perhaps, like some incurable disease, all the drugs of compassion, good intentions, and sanctimony are impotent against the relentlessly destructive virus of evil.

Lets try withdrawing the medicine for a while and maybe, just maybe, a world immune system will kick in from some magical source and affect the cure.

I won't hold my breath.

The Battle of the Biases

The recent accusation by Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times that Fox News was biased is one of the most laughable moments in the contemporary history of media.

Every bit of information spewing from the traditional media, meaning newspapers, television, the Internet, the blogosphere and whatever is biased in some way.

As an admitted news junkie I do an elaborate routine of info touring every day. I subscribe to the printed New York Times and read it diligently every morning as I have done as long as I can remember. I then do an electronic sweep that takes in everything that I can possible absorb in less than an hour. While I shave I often listen to NPR, which falsely champions its neutrality and I see no need to subsidize their biases with my taxes.

On the net I read the highlights of the Wall Street Journal to which I am a paid subscriber, then proceed to the Huffington Post, the Jerusalem Post, the London Times, the National Review, the Nation, CNN, Fox News and scan a host of bloggers. I scan Drudge and pick up from this aggregation other stories of interest in other media outlets. The world goes past in record time and between my writing chores I dip into this info whirlpool throughout the day.

At days end, I watch CNN, Fox News, and the Public TV News Hour then call it a day and read whatever books are on my current reading list.

What I have learned is that everything comes with a biased point of view, especially when it comes to the philosophical underpinnings of what is often dubbed the left and right, liberal and conservative. Rarely, if ever, doth the twain meet on some centrist platform. As an ex-newspaperman, a former columnist, an editor and novelist I have a sensitive and experienced eye for the spinning direction of our bloated information feast.

For the editor of the New York Times to deny the blatant left of center tilt of his newspaper is a joke. It has gotten so that I can read the headlines and know exactly how the story will be slanted. When I read the editorials I know from line one where the Times' writers are going. Leftward ho.

When I read all the Times' op-ed regulars, there again line one will tell me which way the columnist is headed. Also leftward ho. Surely they must know how pervasive their bias is. If it's not up front it's buried in the text. It is part of their DNA, which has spawned a culture that is helplessly and hopelessly biased.

I can actually see the hidden hand at work when I look at how the stories are placed and the tenor of the headlines. And yes, Fox News takes a right turn with its admittedly rightist commentary roster although the news show struggles, often haplessly, to remain in the center with mixed results. CNN makes a valiant try to stay neutral but their efforts are often thwarted by their choice of so-called analysts, also skewed mostly left.

The Huffington Post is clearly and proudly to the left, making little effort to stay centrist. One wonders how AOL will fare as a sponsor of such rigidly liberal viewpoints.

The worst offense of the media lions, as I see it, is not to recognize their own sanctimony about their prejudices. The fact is, contrary to what its self-righteous editor alleges, the opinion pieces and most of the news coverage in the New York Times reads like a brochure championing the Democratic Party, just as Fox News and its satellites could be a brochure for the Republican Party. Why not simply admit the biases and move on.  Hell, it's a free country and press bias is protected by the Constitution.

I do understand that readers, too, bring their biases to these information outlets and prefer to have their views validated by the media they choose. Many of my friends in the sophisticated world of Manhattan where I live label themselves proudly as conforming liberal Democrats. When we discuss current events, I know in advance where they stand on practically every issue and gear my comments to stay clear of open combat. It is often futile since their trigger finger is very sensitive. Of course, whenever an issue is raised I do know exactly what their response will be. Sometimes I share their views. Sometimes not. My conservative friends, too, have their rigid hang-ups, but are less in evidence where I hang out.

My biases are quite eclectic and I hate being labeled since I do not fit the usual categories. As I age I become admittedly less attached to any fixed view on any subject. Perhaps I have heard it all before. I try my darndest to keep an open mind and not allow myself a rigidity of opinion.

I do not wish to hold myself up as a paragon of neutrality. My views range all over the lot. Above all, I am an enemy of zealous ideology and bloated bureaucracy. I do, however, believe that our leaders must have the vision not to break us financially and find the right balance between keeping our entrepreneuring culture alive while offering assistance to those who are incapable of helping themselves.

What I have discovered in a long life is that change happens, often faster than we can plan for it.  We are often blindsided by our past prejudices and biases. It is not easy to come to terms with one's earlier passionate convictions. The operative word to navigate through the shoals of our present dilemma is "agility".

Without agility we will be locked into our prejudices and biases until we walk blindly over the cliff.

The Real Warren Adler

For nearly sixty years I used to think that I was the only Warren Adler in the world. In school, from elementary to college, in the United States Army where I served and in my career as a writer. Up to then I had never met or even heard about another Warren Adler.

It made me believe that my parents had given me a name so unique that it couldn't be replicated. I was told I was named after a great grandfather whose name was "Wolf" and my Hebrew name is Zev, which means Wolf.

I have a feeling, although never admitted by my parents, that the name Warren was suggested by the President Warren Harding, who died in office four years before my parents were married.

As a youngster I felt a strange kinship with people named Warren and could usually relate to movie stars named Warren, like the slick moustached slightly sleazy Warren Williams or the wacky rubber faced sidekick named Warren Hymer. Actually I was rather disappointed in the definition of Warren, which is usually defined as a place that houses rabbits…as in rabbit warren.

Throughout my early life I can't remember ever personally meeting anyone named Warren, although in my middle years I did come across numerous last named Warrens like the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren and I once met a girl from Warren, Ohio, which gave me my opening line to make her acquaintance.

Once while waiting for an airliner in a crowded airport, I heard Warren Adler being called, but when someone else answered I thought I had misheard the name.

It was when I first arrived in Los Angeles that my bubble of uniqueness was shattered. It was in the summer of 1985. I was invited to attend a movie at the Directors Guild. By then, I had published about a dozen novels and the movie industry had taken some notice by optioning or purchasing outright a few of my books, among which was The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, both of which were destined to be made into movies.

I pulled my car into the parking lot behind the Directors Guild building prior to the screening. Suddenly I had what might be called a heart stopping experience. Painted on the asphalt was a reserved spot for Warren Adler. I couldn't believe it. This was somebody's idea of a joke, I reasoned,after rejecting the absurd idea that this was the way people were welcomed to tinsel land.

It turned out, of course, that the spot belonged to the Warren Adler who was then, I believe, counsel to the Directors Guild. Soon after, I decided to call the other Warren Adler in the hope that it might be amusing to trade experiences or simply get acquainted. I left a message and for some reason he never answered my call.

Years later a mutual friend who knew him told me that he might have felt skittish about confronting someone with his name on so many books. Perhaps our mutual name was more of an annoyance to him. Indeed, this blog is prompted by the fact that a story in Variety has announced that Warren Adler is retiring from the Directors Guild after a distinguished career as a respected executive of the Guild. I wish him luck.

Since that time, the Internet explosion has revealed that there are a number of Warren Adlers in the world.  It may not have the popularity of a Smith or a Jones but it has humbled the opinion of my uniqueness.

It goes to show that we are all connected in some mysterious way and, as the poet says, no man is an island.

Will the real Warren Adler please stand?

Showing Up

The standoff in Wisconsin reminds me of Woody Allen's great quote that "ninety percent of life is just showing up."

It reminds me, too, of Alexander Hamilton who signed on to the Constitution when the other two members from New York marched away from the convention in an angry funk after disagreeing with the resultant document. If he hadn't signed for New York, one might speculate that the Constitution could have been delayed, significantly changed or scrapped. Who knows?

Perhaps I am too much of a purist about democracy having grown up in an age, when the bedrock rules of a free country were enshrined in the democratic process. As Winston Churchill had opined, it is a messy business indeed but apparently the only way yet devised to channel the people's will into some kind of orderly intent.

While I understand that it is a wrenching process to eliminate expectations once promised, especially if it hits people in their pocketbook, I must acknowledge that changing times demand changing priorities and the first principle of democracy is that majority rules.

That said, I have to take issue with the elected lawmakers who have chosen to escape their responsibilities because they do not like the results attained by the majority. Frankly it is a bit scary although the protests are, so far, peaceful. The right of protest is inherent in our concept of freedom. So is the obligation to serve when voted into office to represent a constituency.

Indeed, there is an inherent contract between voter and candidate. Just as in sports, a team plays to the bitter end even if the odds against it are insurmountable. Every sports fan and team player understands this arrangement. Grace and courage in defeat is one of the great hallmarks of sportsmanship.

As a citizen, there are lots of things I object to in the various laws enacted by those legislatures that directly affect my life. But if my fairly elected representative chose to escape his or her responsibility by scooting out on the process because he didn't agree with the result, I would shoo him out of office at the first opportunity. In my opinion, whatever their arguments, they have disgraced the democratic process and that, to me, is a high crime against the fundamental concept of a free society.

One can find both merit and demerit in the various arguments being bandied about as to the fairness of what the Governor of Wisconsin and his allies in the legislature have proposed and it is easy to take sides in the protective comfort of distance from the fray. But there are some basic issues that demand comment, especially in an age when the Internet hands anyone a megaphone, including yours truly.

There are some issues where silence is not an option and this is one of them.

What Happens Next for Authors and Publishers

If you are a reader of print books, the bankruptcy of Borders will have the impact of inconvenience, since the big box bookstores like Barnes and Noble largely carry the same books, you will simply toddle over to the Barnes and Noble store, which might or might not require a short ride or walk.

If you are addicted to best sellers, you will be able to pick up your favorite read at a Walmart or if a mass market paper book is your choice you'll still be able to purchase it at your favorite drug store or supermarket.

Aside from the tragic circumstances of lost jobs, the Border's bankruptcy indicates yet again, that the paper book is in serious decline. As a reader of paper books you may have an emotional conniption over that fact but you will have to face the reality of technical change.

It will not be long before even those big bookstores that are left in play will begin to slowly disappear. They will no longer need big space to carry their wares.

Nor is this phenomena restricted to the United States. In the UK 28 British Bookshops and Stationers stores will close within a month. In Australia, not only Borders, but Angus and Robertson and the Whitcoulls chain have been placed into voluntary administration, a fancy definition of bankruptcy.

Adding to the woes of publishers is the fact that the estates of enormously popular dead writers like Barbara Cartland and Ian Fleming have moved their vast backlist into digital. Other authors like Amanda Hocking and numerous other have also gone the route of self-publishing in digital.

The impact on the economics of authoring will be devastating. Not at first. The vast system of distribution, promotion, reviews, publicity and advertising that drove readers to the bookstores and buttressed the traditional publishing industry for decades is shattering. Those whose "brand" has been established through this system will remain but not for long as more and more authors join the fray and attempt to publicize, advertise and market their books.

The taste filters that anointed the "quality" of books on the basis of literary merit and salability will be far too defuse to make a mass market impact. This will be especially true for mainstream novelists who do not fit comfortably into genre categories like romance, mysteries, science fiction, paranormal and numerous others. Celebrity type books, whether by politicians and entertainment celebrities will still be viable for a longer time frame, but these books, too will have to bow to the net for sales.

As content morphs to the Internet and reading devices proliferate, the author will find himself or herself in a morass where establishing his or her identity will be an enormous challenge.

To make matters more complicated, self-publishing will add millions to the volume of books available in digital. Few books will go out of print. Within a short period of time there will be millions of books available to readers. How will a single author rise above the chatter and attract readers?

As if this was still not enough to cause anxiety to the aspirations of authors, there is the avalanche of loose talk predicting the demise of readers.  The prediction is based on the logic of too many distractions that limit reading time, especially for story reading meaning novels. I tend to doubt that assumption. There have always been distractions. Of course, as a writer of stories I am deeply prejudiced. I have heard too many death knells for the novel to find its demise credible.

The concept of  "what happens next", the soul of story, is at the very core of the human psyche. But that is an issue for another time.

There will certainly be no shortage of writers. Creative writing courses are expanding at an enormous rate. There are more than two hundred universities with credible creative writing departments offering degrees at all levels. There are thousands of writing courses being offered outside the college environment to countless numbers of wannabe writers burning to tell their stories.

And they will get them published through digital self-publishing technology. The gates to publication are quickly disappearing and the gatekeepers who policed the publishing business will slowly disappear. Who will read these books? How will readers determine whether a book is worth reading? How many wonderful books will fall through the cracks? How will an author who considers writing his or her calling get read? Will an author be able to sell enough books to sustain him economically? Will too many writers be chasing too few readers? Will there still be a best selling category?

The fact is that no one has the answer. As for what happens next in the publishing business. It is a novel of suspense with no climax in sight.

Arti by Neil McCabe

People's Choice Award Finalist Story in the 6th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest .

    The sun was out and the few remaining clouds were scudding away, but the barnyard was still too wet for playing. The grandkids joined Bob and Berta on the porch.      Bob had seen them looking curiously at the dust covered little car in the barn yesterday.  He'd begun wondering about the car's mysterious equipment failure that had brought him here so many years ago, and his suspicions were on his mind when the kids clustered around him, begging for a story about the old days.

    "Did I ever tell you kids about the time I was kidnapped?"

    Berta's oscillating chair jolted to a stop.

"No!" she and the grandkids said.

"Oh, Grandpa Bob," the kids continued.  "Were you really?  Did you get hurt?  Were you scared?" The kids, ages five, six and seven, pressed closer, touching him gently.

"Don't scare them, Robert!"

"Whoa.  Whoa, everybody.  Just hold your propulsion units! It wasn't the usual kind of kidnapping.  You know the story, Berta."

"But I don't know how you're going to tell it."

"I'm not going to tell the kids anything scary."

Bob said the kidnapping had been harmless, that it would be safe enough to revisit via Time Travel.  "Would you like to do that?" 

"Yes! Let's go, Grandpa!  Let's do TT!"

"Your parental units might not approve," Berta said.  She gave Bob a tungsten stare.

"Grandma's right.  We'll have to wait until you're older, maybe eight or nine."

Berta shook her head.  "It's best not to even consider it.  You never know what kind of problems you might encounter."

"True enough," Bob said.  "If you do TT sometime, kids, be prepared for surprises, and book through a reputable agent.  I used a discount agent once, and she misplaced me way back in the wrong era, totally unprepared. No pelts. No spear.  Of course, there were some pleasant surprises, too.  Like Zorbie.  Wow!"  Bob gazed into the distance across the cornfield.

Berta cleared her throat.

Bob glanced at her sheepishly.  "That was before I met Berta, kids; so, I was, uh, fidelity exempt at the time."

"Bob, I think you better get back to your thematic centrality, right now!" Berta said. 

"My what?"

"Your story."

"Oh, sure.  I wasn't going to go into details about my, uh, friendship, with Zorbie, Berta.  I was just going to say things looked up when I got the wolf pelt, and hairy legs and body odor are things you can get used to, and .…"

"Kids," Berta said,  "you come with me to the kitchen.  I've got some cookies in the catalytic cooker."

"No, no!  We want to hear Grandpa's story, Grandma.  Please!  Grandpa, tell us about Zorbie," the kids chorused. 

"You will not tell them another word about Zorbie, will you, Robert?"

"No, Berta.  I'm going to tell them about Arti."

"OK.  Stick with Artie, and the known facts, and we'll be fine."

"Right.  So, when I was a senior at California State University, Virtual, back in 2040, I was having some, uh, academic problems.  I'm not proud of that, kids, and I want all of you to study hard.  But I had had a virtual affair, and…"

Berta gave Bob a titanium glint.

"…and, what I mean is that I had an exclusively virtual class schedule, and it just wasn't satisfying.  Then I enrolled in an Artificial Intelligence lab.  That's where I met Berta. She was my lab partner!"

"You were a student, Grandpa?  You weren't always a farmer?"

"I have a college degree.  Didn't take up farming until I, uh, moved here. Anyway, I discovered I liked hands-on, working with actual objects.  Some people thought it was backwards, even then.  But I still think there's a place for physical things.  Don't you, Berta?" Bob wiggled his eyebrows.

Berta shot him a laser look. 

"Your grandmother was one fine looking woman.  Still is.  There's always been a bit of a tart sauciness about her, too."  Bob reached over and patted Berta's arm.

She blushed.  "Why don't you just tell them about Arti?  And remember your audience."

"Yes, indeed," Bob said.  "Berta and I had a fantabulous working relationship. I was the brawn, helpful with tasks such as removing tight lids. She was the brains, unlocking mysteries of science, reading about the linkage between activity in different areas of the brain.  By the way, did you know the brain is 60% fat?"

"Grandpa, you made that up!"

"Nope.  You guys are fatheads.  That's a compliment."

"We thought you were going to tell us a story, Grandpa."

"Well, I am. Just giving a little context first.  Computers back then could analyze MRI data and identify objects a person was thinking about, and actions he was considering.  For instance, they could show you were thinking about a cookie and considering eating it.  What they couldn't do was predict whether you would actually eat the cookie.  Other areas of the brain might be active at the same time, and they might be saying 'Whoa!  If you eat that cookie without your parental unit's permission, you will get your hand tased.'"

Bob explained how their studies progressed and lead to development of a guidance system they installed in a model car, enabling them to  "drive" around the lab simply by thinking where they wanted it to go. 

"Berta cuffed me on the aural unit when I did wheelies around Marilyn's cubicle."

"Honestly, Robert.  We're going to have to put a word limit on your stories!

"The executive summary is, …"

"What's an executive summary, Grandpa?"

"The short version."

"I'll believe that when I hear it." Berta rolled her ocular units.

"Grandma's quite the comedian, don't you think, kids?  Who would guess she was also a pioneer in green energy?  We teamed up with groups from the mechanical engineering and composites labs and made a super-light electric vehicle. Lithium ion batteries, motor regen on braking, solar roof panels trickle-charging the batteries.  Standard stuff for that era.  The new trick was the computerized guidance system, controlled the same as our model car: by thought. That little car was "Arti." 

"Is that the car in the barn?  Does it still run?  You named the car 'Arti,' Grandpa?"

"Hold on.  One question at a time.  Yes, Arti is the car in the barn.  No, she doesn't run anymore.  Berta disabled her when she started acting strangely, uh, possessive of me. 'Arti' was an acronym for Artificial Transit Intelligence.  It became a name when we realized she was thinking on her own and had a personality. But I'm getting ahead of myself."

"That would be a first," Berta said. "At the rate you're going the kids will be adults before you finish."

"I'll try to accelerate.  One thing we learned early about our thought-guidance system was:  look out for random thoughts!  Before we programmed Arti's parameters to filter out the randoms, we had some wild rides.  Like the time I was driving Arti down University Avenue, and I saw Marilyn on the sidewalk. Took my thoughts off the road!  Took Arti off the road, too!"

"You didn't pay attention, did you, Grandpa?"

"I paid attention.  Just not to the road."

"You're supposed to watch what you're doing, Grandpa."

"Yes, that's right.  Thank you for the reminder, honey.  Grandma was always better at paying attention.  She's the one who thought of using genetically altered algae cells in the computer chips."

"Ooooh!  Yucky!"

"Sometimes you have to think outside the cell, kids.   Algae may look slimy, but Grandma could see its potential."

"I could see potential in your Grandpa, too," Berta said.

"As I was saying, kids, algae cells were more compact and processed information quicker than silicon or hafnium.  Grandma had a talent for working with the algae cells, enhancing their abilities.  That's what got her the research job here in Nebraska." 

"Algae got Grandma a job?"

"In a way, yes.  Her bio-tech abilities did.  She got a job here working with corn."

Berta nodded in agreement.

"Bio-tech was her field.  But I reckon it was the bio-tech components that caused Arti's, uh, malfunction."  He gave Berta a significant look.  "Would you agree with that, Berta?"

Berta stopped nodding.  "You're telling the story, Robert.  How are you going to find your way to the end of it?"

"I didn't think the end would be in Nebraska.  Grandma invited me to come here with her, but I said no.  She was disappointed, weren't you, Berta?  But you brightened up when I agreed to take good care of Arti, didn't you?"

Berta didn't confirm or deny it.

Turning to the kids, Bob told them, "Our A.I. instructor, Professor Singh, gave us Arti. All her useful data had been extracted, and he didn't want her cluttering the lab."

"But why didn't you come here with Grandma?"

"I thought the future was in California.  I accepted a job in Hafnium Valley.  Before the Big One."

"The big what, Grandpa?"

"The big earthquake.  The one that split California off into the ocean.  Nebraska turned out to be a good move.  And this is where Grandma became a pioneer in the photovoltaic corn field."

"What's 'photovoltaic corn,' Grandpa?"

"Corn that makes electricity out of sunlight." 

The kids looked puzzled.

"You've heard of korn volts, haven't you?"

The kids nodded and pointed to the kernels powering their iCommunicators.

"Those were invented by Grandma." 

Bob and the kids looked at Berta, whose neck and face had reddened.

"After Berta left for Nebraska, I used Arti as my commuter.  Worked fine at first.  Oh, there were things that should have aroused suspicion.  Like the time I drove from Hafnium Valley to Chico, to visit a college buddy.  I planned to stay on the main highways, but just north of Dunnigan, Arti turned off I-5 onto back roads through the rice fields and orchards. I'm yelling, 'Arti, where are you taking us?'  And then I asked a really stupid question:  'What are you thinking?'"

"Why was that stupid, Grandpa?"

"Arti wasn't supposed to think! She was supposed to read my thoughts.  But she'd thought up a route shorter and more scenic than mine!"

"Arti must have been really smart."

"Yup.  But somehow I convinced myself I'd thought up her route subconsciously and she just tuned in."

"Did Arti have other thoughts, Grandpa?"

"I believe she did." Bob glanced at Berta.  "A few weeks later, I'd finished my tofu crunch, and I was ready for work, when I heard the garage door open.  I rushed outside to investigate, and Arti was sitting in the driveway.  No one was around.  I walked over to her, and her door swung open.  Kind of joking, I said, 'Arti, how thoughtful!  You're ready to take me to work!'"

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything.  She didn't have speakers.  But her headlights turned on."

"So that proved she was thinking, huh, Grandpa?"

"Yes.  But I thought her electrical system was shorting out.  Or maybe she was responding to my thoughts.  After all, I was thinking about driving to work, and it was a dark morning."

"Grandpa, are you kind of dumb, sometimes?"

"Well, sometimes I'm a little slow, but I can be educated.  Isn't that right, Berta?  You've taught me a couple of things, haven't you?"

"That's right, kids," Berta said.  "He'll come when he's called, and he'll sit.  Sometimes."

One of the grandkids said, "Grandpa's not a dog!" and another said "Here, Grandpa.  Come here."

Bob let his tongue loll and pretended to pant.  "That kind of backfired on me, didn't it?  Anyway, Arti was thinking, and she lulled me into a comfort zone, going through the same routine day after day.  But then funny things started happening."

"Like jokes?"

"No.  Odd things.  One day when we pulled into the company parking lot, Arti's doors locked.  I couldn't get out.  So, I said to Arti, 'I'm thinking of getting out and going to work now.'  Nothing happened.  The thought illuminated in my head that I would have to smash the window, but that was followed with the thought that I might cut myself.  And then Arti just popped her door open."

"Arti didn't want you to hurt yourself, huh, Grandpa?"

"Right.  Another day, when we got to the freeway off-ramp, Arti just kept going straight.  But she took the next off-ramp and doubled back to the office.  At times like that I always thought of Berta.  She'd know what to do, how to tweak the control modules."

"Grandma's really smart, huh, Grandpa?"

"Absolutely.  Anyway, when Arti did that off-ramp thing again one morning and my thoughts turned to Berta,  Arti just sailed right on.  Before I realized what was happening, we were crossing the Sierras and there was nothing I could do about it.  The doors were locked, and I couldn't get out even if Arti stopped."

"You were having an adventure, huh, Grandpa?"

"Yes.  But I didn't think of it that way.  I was madder than a wet poultry unit.  And scared.  By the time we got to Reno, I also had a serious caloric deficiency." 

"Didn't you pack a snack, Grandpa?  Whenever we go on an adventure our parental units pack us a snack."

"I didn't know I was going on an adventure.   Anyway, Arti dealt with it.  She pulled up to a take-out restaurant and opened my window just enough so a tofu burger and a soy shake could be passed through."

"Artie was nice, wasn't she, Grandpa?"

"Well, after that I knew she wasn't going to let me starve.  And I was able to use my shake cup to, uh, go numero uno, so I knew she wasn't going to let me burst, either."

"Our parental units always tell us to pee before we go on a long trip."

"I didn't know I was going on a long trip.  Fortunately, the next time I got hungry and needed to go to the bathroom, Arti read my thoughts, stopped at a restaurant in Wendover, Utah, and let me out. I decided then, 'Hey!  She's going to take care of me.'  I got back in voluntarily. After that I just sat back and went along for the ride. Two days and nights later, we pulled up to this little white house on the outskirts of Omaha, and there was Berta, on the porch, waving."

Bob looked over and gave her a wink.

"It was almost like you were expecting us, Berta."

Historical Insignificance by Garrett Clancy

People's Choice Award Finalist Story in the 6th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest .

I AM: unemployed once more, 4th time in past year, which is 100% tell-me-somethin'-I-don't know info as

I AM: an L.A.-cliché, AKA failed TV writer, with lone 6-years-in-past credit, but 2-day is 2-day and

I AM: on Zuma sands, sweating ass in yellow plastic chair.

I AM: sans sunblock yet again, 

I'M: still on Prozac, AND

I'M: reading something calculated to make me more attractive to some Baywatch beauty-type, though she'd need a degree in contemporary Lit or else won't recognize name of author of same Grove Press tome which I hold, but don't read really- a ploy, as I say, to gain the interest of some boobs and brain dream-combo and NOT the fully-dressed man with the John Brown-wild, granite-colored hair and beard who, as he stands like darkened dew-fat cloud between yours truly and the warm-as-raisin toast sun, is fucking with my George Hamilton, and who claims

I am your biological father

and who has tracked me here to this spot, he further elaborates, after having received tip from faux-Jamaican accented mama answering the telephone at 1-900 psychic thinggy – but he could just as easily have found my # & my address after B.S.-ing some nosey neighbor, Crazy Kelly no doubt, she with aged tattoo of weeping Jesus on Pillsbury-Doughboy white left ass cheek, latter and its twin in serious need of Thigh-Master action to point that Jesus, when Kelly sashays in satiny G-string bikini bottom after leaving my apartment door disappointed yet again, shimmer-moves and appears to be face from LSD flashback (Vermont, 1979, Neil Young plucking acoustic guitar in converted cow pasture, and me speaking aloud to any funhouse-mirror faced fellow concert-goer nearby fluent German, I think, having never studied same) all wavy'n shit and Kelly always slapping at same ass cheek with turquoise ring-weighted hand, reminding me that "he's" (weeping tattoo Saviour) "got my ass covered!" then haw-hawing at own quasi double-entendre & extending invitation # 332 to me to drink Mickey's tallboys by our apartment building's kidney-shaped pool, said pool overflowing with water the color of that which passes thru same organ, but I digress; daddy, or so he claims, could've gotten info on my whereabouts any number of places/sources, though when he mentions

You were born in Washington D.C. to an Army Corporal mother named Sally Des Bladdes

he gets my attention, as that is my surname and mommy of mine was in fact a soldier once upon a time. My back stiffens as though I've just been informed that some black widow spider crawled upon same, then daddy, if he is indeed who he claims, pokes at cover of book I pretend to read and offers

Kathy Acker- dig her stuff too and here is a little something I've been keeping for you son which explains just how twas you came to be

and he hands me this gnarled blackened THING which I take, after contemplating three or so beats, to be a bullet, tho kinda looking now like a stubbed-out cigarette butt that's been bronzed and left to tarnish

gouged it out

Daddy points to bullet with Uncle Sam war poster finger

with m'Swiss Army pocketknife from this bus stop bench in Austin Texas three days after same little sonofabit-chin' bullet come within a cunt hair of givin' me an impromptu pan-cree-ass removal an' ol' Charlie Whitman he's the reason this bullet is the reason you are here as I dove like Johnny Weismuller for shelter behind said bench and fell a-toppa this pretty young filly wearin' an Army suit- in the Navy once m'self – and we clung to each other two survivors Lucky as the so-named smokes all day and thru one sleepless shivering night and when I got back to m' daddy's ranch outside Laramie Wyoming a year or so later after working oil rigs in Tulsa Oklahomey and various other assorted bullshit gigs my own daddy showed me this faded kinda yellow-like-ginger candy Western Union telegram announcing the birth of my baby boy which'd be YOU by God I'd hardly recognize you and sorry and all that but I've got cancer of the balls see and by the way I hope you're wearin' sunblock case!

it's her-editary and I am on my last legs as they say old hairy pencils at that so here we are

he breathes finally and sits down beside me on my beach towel, which is actually a poster for The Godfather, and of course is yet another ploy to…but it's too late for that now; what cute/smart angel could even see it underneath Raggedy Andy's bone-butt? and by God I'm seriously thinking about introducing this character to Crazy Kelly, dad or no, just for fucking with my serenity and new girlfriend-dream plans and interrupting my flow of such-themed thoughts with

here we are at what has got to be one'a the prettiest darn beaches on the sweet clean ass of Mother Earth and to be honest with you sonny I'm broke as Moses and tried to sell

pointing to MY bullet

self-same symbolic token of your existence and my near-death experience a'course as the chubby fella at the last pawnshop told me and he was right there just ain't no real way to prove that there slug is the gen-u-wine article fired from that crazy-as-a-shithouse rat ex-Marine's rifle on that awful awful day but ain't it funny how I think often that I almost lost my life and made a NEW one all in the same 24-hour period but again as I say pawnshop owners don't give a monkey's ass about history so can you spot me say a ten-spot or a couple'a sawbucks sonny so's I can die in some motel room in Malibu which has in fact been my dream for quite some time now

STOP

You've never read Kathy Acker

(In addition I'd like to know, though I don't mention it, the whereabouts of some three decades-plus of back child support, seeing as I am, myself, broke as Moses or whatever he said, and could sure as fuck use even some fraction thereof)

Well o-kee so I lied ya caught me but I read a lot'a stuff in my Navy days stuck out on the battleship U.S.S. Virginia 6 long months at a time I mean you got your smarts from somewheres I suppose

YES – my mother!

Well I bet you ain't read half the stuff I did stuff like Journey to the End of the Night by this French doctor Say-leen and mucho stuffo by Jack Ker-roo-ack whose name I mispronounced for a good year're more til a Lieutenant J.G. from Massachusetts set me straight and then old Thomas Wolfe and As I lay Dying and Sound and the Something-or-other by William Fawk-ner and aww hell I ain't got time to argue this shit out with you I'm dyin' boy have an ounce of sympathy why don't you by God show some appreciation for history that bullet is REAL fired off the University of Texas li-berry tower and it might be the ONLY true connection between us you'n me and do the math were you not born pretty much exactly nine months after the fact why how could I make such a thing up an ol' cowboy like me who may or may not've read a couple'a good books and I'd settle for pocket change at this point kiddo maybe a ride back to Santa Monica a good word fer chrissakes even

PLEASE I think but don't say and then it smacks me like Moe Howard's hand across my too-thin superior lips that this has been MY dream, to see an old, dying man who claims to be my father show up one fantasy day, broke and much like this dried up husk of a John Doe (I still don't know his name) who sits beside me – it has been my wish to take satisfaction in the suffering of he who abandoned me (and my mother) before, even, my very birth – but though it has been my hope my passionate desire to have this man, my father, beg forgiveness (in my dream it was from a piss-smelling wheelchair) for all his many wrongs just so that I could pass him by on Skid-row (though why I'd even be walking on such a street is unclear to me) with nary an acknowledgment of his wretched existence, don't need you or recognize you are even alive, old man I dreamed of saying – but now I find I am inexplicably moved touched, empathetic even, wanting and wishing now I could help somehow this unfortunate!

creature, my father…and it is then I see the porpoises. A pair. Dipping disappearing re-appearing slippery in and out of the Earl Grey-tea colored seawater behind the surfer dudes hanging-zero and lazier, even, than me. Smooth, Flipper's second cousins are, diving again like black…bullets

by God look at'em go

dad says interrupting my thoughts, once again, my very fears

free as rain what a great and wonderful thing it is to be free as rain

LATER, after I have driven us the re-united to my Van Nuys $510 per month failed screenwriter special shit-dump, and after I was sure as he lay there on my tequila and cheap beer-stained passenger car seat (that trip to Ensenada with Frederick and Nickle-bag Boy) with eyes closed, spittle fizzling over lower lip he had in fact already gone to swim with Flipper's second cousins forever, and after Crazy Kelly nosed in and was actually welcome for once, a regular Candy-Stripe 19-70's drive-in movie theater exploitation half-angel/half-whore Colleen Camp nurse-maids, and who whines "oh, the poor old cowboy why didn't you tell me your dad was comin'  to visit you what kind of son are you he's a real looker too do you think he wants a beer?" and after he opened his eyes just as CK , mini-skirted simply because it was Tuesday, was bending over in front of dad prone on my lone sad couch to remove his socks blacker than an Arabian horse neck and saw the weeping Jesus tattoo smiled an!

d cried

I do not deserve your piteous tears Dear Lord but take me home and end my general discomfort and let sonny-boy know by sign or miraculous intercession that he was although a stranger indeed be-loved of me 

After all of this I want to say WAIT DO NOT DIE ON ME, but do not as I know by now, though deprived of paternal guidance and affection these 36+ years, until this moment that is, that strange events such even as the visitation of ghosts do not cannot occur without there being (though dog-years may pass without genuine clarity concerning same) some MEANING attached…

And thus it was epiphanic and clear to me, pretend-reader of great novels, terminally-unemployable, borderline cruel rejector of too-many-to-count advances of Crazy Kelly, that we had, my dead father and I, all along shared so giant (Gibraltar-like, really) a THING in common, the THING being that which was the explanation for every tear ever shed, every mirror ever shattered with closed fist by your's truly –

I got Kelly to lend me a hundred dollars and promise to water my cactus plant once every three weeks in exchange for letting her call 911 to report the death of the strange man on my couch in order to give her something to talk about for the next two months ("my gawd it was awful right in front of me he went just like that – SNAPP!"), and also, though I hate to admit it, one long, sad night of forced (on my part, of course) lovemaking during which I was afraid to put my hand on the quivering vision of weeping Jesus for fear I might (once again) offend and hurt him

I load my car with books to make me seem serious &  learned &  in general a threat to no-one on Earth to any cop who might mistake my porcupine cheeks and haven't- dozed- a-nano-second in 26 consecutive hours eye-glaze for a potential Charlie Whitman redux, and figure I've got just enough gas & food & beer $$$  to reach Las Vegas. I hold in my T-shirt pocket the address of the son I abandoned 6 years before and his mother, with whom I had spent a few sweet comforting nights not so long ago but never knew really, but who is now the very Lotto ticket to all of my future character and purpose…. 

My name is Abel and so-named is my little boy. He'll probably want to bring his gnarled and tarnished bullet to school for Show & Tell. He is, it dawns upon me I as I drive thru Victorville, not far off the age of the Latino boy shot-dead in the stairwell of the UT Li-berry tower as daddy called it by the firer of my ballistic memento (tho my recollection of same tragic moment in time comes via the Kurt Russell-led MOW I saw some years back while waiting for my un-employment benefits to once again run dry and so might not be 100% on-target, pun intended all the way.) I'm listening to a block of the Stones on KLOS as I cruise east on the I-15, ass-deep in the midst, as I intimate, of my 19th Nervous Breakdown. I have, tho, Sympathy for the Devil, and I hope like my momma did when she was shivering behind that Austin Texas bench in fear for her very life that my new family will, alas, take pity on me and Gimme (the) Shelter I so desperately desire &  need.

Squid Jiggers by Judi Blaze

People's Choice Award Finalist Story in the 6th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest .

        Seven squid jiggers line the weathered dock like seagulls. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hair amiss from a significant east wind, waiting for their prey. Their hands are covered with ocean slime, dirty water sloshes over onto their shoes and the sound of a distant foghorn goes unnoticed in an otherwise silent night.

      I live on a rock where jiggers welcome the black of night like hungry bats. They use the dock nearest my house. On the east side of the island, the dock juts some 300 feet into the deep waters of Puget Sound. The dock, they say, has been here almost as long as there have been people living on the island.

    Sometimes I walk by the fishermen at night filling my lungs with fog and mist and occasionally rain, on my way to the Toolies to dance and drink with others who gather to avoid lonely nights in dark houses, alone with last year's thoughts.  Most nights it's the same people, loud and fun, talking, crying, mostly telling stories they've told a hundred times before when hungry ears open and beer loosens their tongues. The Toolies is what they call a meat market, a good place for a single woman to meet a man, and that's where I met the man who eventually made my life hell—a master jigger who ruled the dock. That was before he left the island with a woman on one arm and all his fishing equipment in the other.

      The dock is crowded most nights this time of year with men wearing thick coats and hats that cover red ears, and mops as dark as the winter sky. Floodlights, brilliant enough to light up half of Seattle, brighten an otherwise coal black dock. The squid jiggers hook them up to attract their prey.

     Jiggers always amaze me, even though not much that happens on this unassuming island can surprise me anymore. I'm amazed because I like calamari as much as anyone, but I'll be damned if I'll stand out here and wait for a slimy critter to take the bait, lug buckets around, and then stand while the cold enters my bones like worms in soft wood. I did do some heavy lifting and bone-freezing when my husband, Melon, jigged. I wouldn't do it now for any fisherman.

    Regardless of the cold, the jiggers stand like happy little soldiers—hands in pockets, tongues rolling around in fat cheeks, with the smell of fresh kill on their calloused, dirty hands, night after night. They wait near the rail with poles hung over the edge like erect penises. In the water below you can barely see reflections of squid surfacing in search of a mate, their season finally here; horny, hungry, unaware and frightened all at the same time. Sounds like some men I know.

      As I walk out further to the end of the dock with tired feet as sorry as my dog's new flea problem, I see that I recognize most of the guys. When you live on a small island, you're bound to recognize people, especially when squid jigging was in your ex-partner's blood. And since he was the king of the jigger dock, as he liked to say, you might say I was in the limelight.

      I'm a little more careful now, though, because it doesn't pay to be too friendly with certain people. A quick nod, a half smile, or a grunted hello from deep within my throat, is plenty. Someday when I leave this island I'll never give guys like this a second glance, and I'll probably never see a squid again, either, unless it's on an elegant China plate at a restaurant so fancy I have a reason to wear a dress.

     Boiler is the first man I notice. He's the one with shoulders that stretch out twice the size of most men's and a gut that extends out over his pants like a fat and happy brew. He's got the ratty jacket too, but doesn't care because he's pulling them in right and left, filling his bucket to the brim with slimy, condom-looking wigglers not much bigger than a good-sized banana. No one believes his real name is Boiler, but he says it's true. His mama named him that some 35 years ago on a quiet, cold night in a boiler-room where his dad worked. Yeah, right.

       Next to him is Fern. Sounds like a girl's name to me—flowery, soft and quiet—but it's not. He pointed that out to me one night when I took a ride with him on the Great Northern Posturepedic. He ain't no girl and I'm no lady, but who cares? That was before I took the oath not to entertain the likes of a squid jigger, before I told myself I needed to leave the island and make a new life for myself, next year for sure.

      It looks to me like a contest to see who can pull in the most squid. "Hey," I say, not expecting much more than a nod of the head, while I flip golden damp hair out of my face.

     "Hey, kid, how's it going?" Everyone looks, heads twisting, bouncing up and down like yo yos when Sal acknowledges my presence.  Sal's called me kid before, so I usually remind him that my name is Meg, but he knows that and doesn't really care.

      Within ten seconds they're back to watching their poles and pulling those slippery squid in like it's the most important thing in their lives, and for some of these guys, it probably is. I watch while Sal rearranges his pole, hat, lights a cigarette, and kicks a beer can out of the way all at the same time. Sal is short for his legitimate name, Salmon.   

    His father was a salmon fisherman in Astoria. When he saw his shiny, pink baby for the first time, he said all he could think of was a salmon. His mother died shortly after childbirth. Sal never got to meet the woman who brought him into this world, but he sure got to learn how to fish for salmon.

      "Headin to Tools?"  Sal looked at me, then quickly at the bucket sitting at his feet. I know he wanted me to be aware of his catch. His ego is as big around as the tires on my beat-up pickup and as full of air. I figure, why not? If a little ego massaging is what these guys need, I'll bite.

    "That's a bunch of squid," I said, pointing with my eyes, giving my voice some inflection while I fill my ears with a new horizontal rain that has come up suddenly. I watch while a new arrival is released, spewing purple ink in protest of the catch.

      Weather changes fast on the island this time of year and there is barely a night that I can get to the Toolies without getting wet and chilled to the bone. The fishermen are wrapping their coats tighter around them, but not one of them, like me, makes a move to leave. My coat begins to leak, and I feel water through my soft cotton T-shirt, touching my skin like a pair of wet lips.

     In the distance a ship stretches out like yielding taffy, probably longer than the block I live on, passing in cotton-ball silence, the jiggers unaware of its presence. Walking over to the other side of the dock, I watch in silence until it's out of sight. Just over there, across the water where the fog sometimes hides the distant lights, is where I'll go when I really get serious about life off the island. Seattle, where the action is.

      Rain runs in steady rhythm now down my green hood, dripping into January time, reminding me that this is another winter not to be spent on the beaches of Mexico. Across the dock, men's voices rise and fall to the rhythm of the catch.

     Foghorns, an occasional gull cry, and spitting are the sounds at the dock on what I call a squid jigger night.  It looks like a good catch tonight, too. The markets tomorrow will be happy and the boys who played fishermen will be down at Toolies drinking up their profits, asking me to dance and taking home the Bell of the Ball, whoever that might be.

     After bidding the boys good night I pull my scarf tighter, wipe raindrops from my face, sort through the many thoughts running around my head, and start to walk away before I remember. "I'll be down at Toolies later if any of you wanna dance."   

     Sal nods, then Boiler, then Fern. Grunts are heard all around. I guess a grunt is the universal language when more important things are at hand, like jigging in the night.

         Heading off the dock I feel bright lights on my back, like thoughtful eyes helping me along in the right direction. Tonight the rain dies down as quickly as it started. Now the air is rainwater fresh, lung-cooling crisp, and the smell of darkness invades.

     As I walk closer to my destination, thoughts of resisting squid go through my head like passers in the night. I think squid jiggers are to be applauded, admired, maybe even awarded. If nothing else, the town should erect a plaque in their honor near the edge of the tired dock where people like me stop by to say hey and give boost to slender egos. Calamari lovers everywhere should give gratitude.

        Later at Toolies where, like Cheers, everyone knows my name, I laugh and talk, cry in my beer over past lovers, and dance with island men who are truly salt of the earth, caring and certainly friendly enough. When the jiggers come in later, dock smells following them like long tails, I wave and wait for them to come over to my table where I sit with several others who are heavy into a conversation about slick-talking city people, asphalt smog, noise and crowded sidewalks.

     As the night progresses, I probably dance with every eligible guy in Toolies. One thing I can say about this group, they all have a history together and care enough about each other to pay attention when someone loses their insides, or worse yet, their heart.

     The more I listen, the more I realize that I may just stay on this isle. Where else could I spend time on a January evening, watching the waters of Puget Sound as it bequeaths its delicious aquatic wonders? Where else could I give a boost to the egos of so many squid jiggers while on my way to The Toolies?

Fields Where Glory Does Not Stay by Lones Seiber

First Place Award Winning Story in the 6th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest .

After my father left us, my mother began speaking to people I couldn't see and never answered the door. When she was institutionalized, I became a ward of the State, but only for a week.  The court awarded custody to my uncle, who took me to live with him and Aunt Rose on their farm in McMinn County. 

"She's your ma, Melissa," Uncle Luther said of his sister.  "She's afflicted with real bad nervous spells; always has been."

I was seven-years-old and had never been outside Knoxville.  I remembered little of my father, and my mother's intractable moods rendered her incapable of bestowing affection, so, emotionally, I had left nothing behind.

The sun had not shown its face since morning, the sky rippled and twisted into gray whorls, but then, just before dusk, as we turned off the main dirt road to an even narrower one leading to their house, the same house where my mother had grown up, it streaked low, lingering clouds in scarlet and purple.  For a moment, framed by two, black walnut trees leaning toward one another, the tops intertwined, a soft, yellow light blanketed the valley and the farm.  I lost sense of place for a moment, enchanted by what seemed a perfectly composed portrait of tranquility. 

A path of irregularly shaped, stone slabs, with two large, pear trees, so lush with blossoms they appeared drenched in snow, on either side, led to the old, clapboard house that had two bedrooms, a metal roof that roared when it channeled rain to replenish the cistern, a stone fireplace, an outhouse for a bathroom, and a springhouse for a refrigerator.  Since electricity was still years away and considered an unnecessary extravagance, Aunt Rose cooked everything on a black iron, wood-burning stove, which at times glowed like an autumn sunset.  At night, two, flickering, coal oil lamps with tapered, glass chimneys supplied the only light. The two hundred acre farm sat at the bottom of a ridge, forested with virgin hardwood and pine, that stretched ten miles north to where the highway sliced through to Decatur and just as far south to the banks of the Hiawassee. 

Each morning I was up at dawn and, after a hearty breakfast of eggs; bacon or sausage, fried in liberal amounts of lard; grits; and biscuits with preserves or jam, out helping with whatever needed to be done. The dew glittered with the emerging light as if sequins had been scattered across the fields overnight; a shuffle of bird calls crowded the mornings, which, along with the croaking of frogs and the ratcheting sound of summer insects, formed an unscripted, ubiquitous chorus; bordering forests, free to grow unchecked, had formed an impenetrable umbrella of green so dense that the ground underneath never felt the sun. 

I began following Uncle Luther around, helping in any way I could. He was tall and thin, his arms nothing but sinewy muscle and purple veins, the skin spotted with age.  His face was gaunt, with high cheek bones, a long thin nose, and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.  Although I didn't know that much at first, I learned quickly, and a lot of tasks required just two pairs of hands.  After a couple of weeks, there wasn't much a boy my age could do that I couldn't.  I'd stand on a box and fit bridles to our old, silver mule Joe and the mare Uncle Luther had never bothered to name. He even allowed me, with careful supervision, to practice driving some of the equipment around the barn.  It came quickly, as if I was doing what I had been born for.

One morning when the grass in the eastern pasture was high enough for the first cutting of hay, and the almanac predicted a clear day, he asked me to get the mower ready.  I hitched Joe and the mare to the double tree, and when the breezes caressing the tops into waves had dried the grass, I was astonished when he strapped me onto the seat.

"Take it slow," he said and walked away to mend fences and attend to other neglected chores.

My hands trembled as I gripped the reins.  A thin mist lingered above the muddy water as I made the first pass where the creek skirted the field. I took extra care not to snag the fence. The morning air filled with the summer-sweet smell of ravenous honeysuckle vines.  The field was smooth, no hidden gullies or broken ground, except for the ruins of an old slave cottage that had become a haven for bats, so the mowing went quickly. When it was done, I hitched the team to the rake with its large, looped tines and pulled the hay into bunches to be loaded onto the wagon. I was too small to be of much help with that, but in the barn, when Uncle Luther pitched it up into the loft, I spread it around to the sides and into the corners so that we could fit it all in.

When it was done, we fed Joe and the mare and put them up for the night. 

As we walked back to the house, darkening clouds rose from the west, nibbling at the setting sun until it was fully occluded, sheet lightening flickering around the edges.

"Just in time," Uncle Luther said and rubbed my head.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

After supper each night, Uncle Luther and I listened to the news through the static on his battery radio, and then we'd go outside and lie in the grass, the only sounds, the distant baying of foxhunters' hounds racing the ridges in pursuit of prey they'd never outwit. If no clouds blinded the stars, Uncle Luther would trace the constellations with his finger and tell me legends behind each.  On moonless nights, I remember how humbling it was, especially the Milky Way, the spectral flood of stars overwhelming. We whispered as if we were in a cathedral. Sometimes we'd see a shooting star.  Aunt Rose said they were signs from God, that good fortune would follow whoever saw one.  Although I never told her, I later learned those signs from God were nothing more than rocks in space that had lost their way.

Toward the end of winter, when the snow on the ridges behind the farm began to thaw, the crooked branch that ran a half-mile from the springhouse, through the pig pen, and on to the creek became clogged with gravel at a bend below the house and began washing out the road to the barn. Uncle Luther decided to clear it with a plow.  Somehow the blade became tangled in his overalls, shattering his right leg.  Aunt Rose and I rushed him into Athens, the county seat, but the doctor at Foree Hospital sent him by ambulance to Erlanger in Chattanooga where they had to amputate the leg at the knee.

In a few days he was moved to the Veteran's Hospital in Johnson City where they fitted him with a prosthetic. After weeks of rehabilitation, he learned to walk again, but with a slight limp, sometimes having to steady himself. 

When we returned to the farm, the grass was high enough for the first cutting of hay.  Neighbors helped with the harvest.  After I ran the mower and the rake, they pitched the hay onto wagons and then up to me in the barn's loft. Although he tried, Uncle Luther couldn't do what he had before, several times falling off balance while trying to help. 

"Go sit in the shade, Luke" one of the men said.  "We'll take care of it."

We got the crop in, but there were other things to do, always other things to do, filling the crib with corn, slaughtering a hog, the second cutting of hay, but more and more, it seemed, he could do little but walk, and not well at that. The neighbors had their own farms to care for, so they could only help occasionally.  I was growing all the time, taller and stronger than most girls my age, and, with Aunt Rose's help, I could have kept the farm going, but she said his pride wouldn't have permitted it, her doing his work.

Although it had rained hard the night before, the next Sunday's dawn came with the bluest sky I'd ever seen.  A partial rainbow lingered behind bruised thunderheads sinking below the eastern horizon.  It was the kind of morning that made you feel things just had to work out. As Aunt Rose and I made our way to the car for church, Uncle Luther held my hand and then closed my door.  He reached through the window and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand and smiled.  I looked back as we pulled away, Uncle Luther limping toward the house, his thin, gray hair wafting in the breeze.

He wasn't home when we got back mid-afternoon.

"Maybe that leg give out on him," Aunt Rose said.  "We need help." Telephones were a novelty, which had not made their way past the Athens' city limit, but everyone had a large, cast iron bell mounted near the house.  Aunt Rose began cranking the handle to summon the neighbors.

I conducted my own search, inside the barn, around the outhouse, the corncrib.  I followed the branch, which widened to a deep ravine thick with pine saplings, and walked the banks of the creek for a while, thinking he might have gone fishing and forgotten the time.  The pealing of the bell echoed forebodingly across the pasture. When I'd gone as far as I thought he could, I started back toward the barn when I saw something lying in a tangle of blackberry bushes lining the back wall. Then, I smelled it, the stench I was so familiar with, of life fleeing from a dangling hog after it had been shot and its throat cut. Next I saw his feet, his brogans, a hole worn in the sole of one, the heels apart, the toes touching; he lay slumped with his back against the barn, leaning on one elbow, his arms scratched from the briars he'd fallen into, the shotgun lying to the side, splattered blood fanned along the wooden slats, half his head gone, one eye open, unblinking, staring at the sk!

y.  I didn't yell or run for help.  I started for the house.  As I rounded the corner of the barn, Jimmy Stubblefield pulled up in his truck.  I pointed behind me without stopping, Aunt Rose, wiping her hands on an apron, stood at the gate.

"Did you find him?" she said, as if she knew the answer.

"Yes," I said calmly.  "He's gone," and clutched her skirt.  It was time to cry.

The farm sold quickly. Aunt Rose bought a small house in Knoxville, where we lived until I went away to college. Rather than having Uncle Luther buried in the family plot across Spring Creek, she wanted him near her.  He had served in the Army, so he was eligible for a military funeral and interment in the National Cemetery on Wray Street in Knoxville.

As we left the farm for the final time, I mentally documented things along the way that had become commonplace and, unfortunately, taken for granted:  gaunt men in overalls walking the dusty shoulders, often with scrawny, mixed breed dogs trailing, and women hanging out wash with clothes pins in their mouths, each waving as we passed, as if we were someone they knew, which in most cases we were; defeated scarecrows, nothing more than rotting clothes hanging on crooked crosses, perpetually on guard but largely ignored by foraging crows; unpaved roads with a least one flattened possum, its head twisted around, its mouth opened as if it had just turned to confront the thing that killed it; front porch swings hanging by chains; abandoned cars, without hoods or wheels, engulfed in weeds, some with weathered "Not For Sale" signs on the windshield; and for the first time, I could appreciate the grace of vultures in flight, circling on thermal cushions as they waited patiently for t!

he inevitable cycle of life to complete itself.

For some reason, I had a premonition, a coiling in my stomach, like a knotted fist, that the simple but rewarding life we had known was as good as gone.  In a few years a multi-laned bypass would intercept Highway 11 well north of Athens and rejoin it ten miles south at Riceville.  Along it a new Athens would emerge, a tinseled world of McDonald's, Kawasaki and Pizza Hut.  And then years after that, many miles to the west, an interstate would slice gracelessly through the countryside, marring the agrarian beauty that had remained practically untouched since the Civil War. To those passing at highway speeds, and above, Athens would become nothing more than a green sign, a collection of motels, and a blur of neon and salmon colored lights, the kind that make everything look jaundiced, tearing the heart out of the heartland.  Looking back now, I think it was the right time to leave, for both Uncle Luther and myself.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

The day of his funeral dawned with a crystalline brilliance.   By the time we arrived at the cemetery, the casket, draped in an American flag, sat suspended on straps, soldiers lining the back side; behind them, a half dozen wreaths, with pink gladiolus, red and white carnations and baby's-breath, on wire stands. We seemed to be amongst a field of stones, each identical to hundreds of others, most undecorated, arranged in circles and rows as if there was a brotherhood and anonymity in death. 

After a chaplain in uniform stood at the head of the casket and recited some words spoken so quietly and reverently I doubt anyone understood, a row of guns fired several times; I plugged my ears after the first round; then soldiers wearing white gloves removed the flag from his coffin and folded it with robotic precision.  One of them offered it, trapped between his hands, to Aunt Rose; she nodded and accepted it as she wept. 

As we left, I thought of the nights Uncle Luther and I had spent scanning the sky, and, if it was present, watching the moon grin through its phases.  Although I never told him, I believed it to be opening a bit each night until, just before it began to wane, a hole had formed in the sky.  Was that the portal to Heaven?  Had he found that portal, or had he simply gone to sleep and never woke up?  I couldn't see that it mattered. In either case, he was at peace.