After the Wilderness

By Gordon Kearns

Chapter 3

It was Rachel's turn at the desk for the period of lunch and early afternoon. She exhibited almost no interest in the computer keyboard before her, pecking at it in only desultory spurts. Finally, she gave it up entirely and contented herself with staring at the lake through the glass patio doors. There was a steady hum of conversation flowing down the steps to the dining room. She casually turned from the view and smiled as she saw Patty approaching. "Not eating?" she asked the girl.

Patty, too, smiled --a bit nervously. "I tried, but I wasn't very hungry. I have to go to my room for something."

Rachel handed her the key and watched her walk to the annex. Only a few minutes had passed before Patty returned. She was holding a white business-size envelope at her left side. As she reached to give Rachel her key, she asked, "Is ...is there a place around here called the Chapel in the Woods?"

"There's a path leading up the hill --behind the lodge, on the other side of the tennis courts. The chapel is an old concrete altar and a few concrete benches, about a third of a mile up the path. It's used for special inter-denominational services on Sundays in good weather and religious holidays now and then." She gently grasped Patty's hand. "Are you going there now?"

Patty nodded.

Rachel: "Is Patrick supposed to be there?"

Patty: "Yes."

Rachel, still holding Patty's hand: "Scared?"

Patty: "Yes."

Rachel: "Would it help if I went along with you?"

Patty: "It would help, but ...it would probably be better if you didn't. I have to face this alone ...I think." She returned Rachel's affectionate squeeze of her hand. Then she turned and walked to the back doors leading to the tennis courts.

Rachel pulled a Kleenex from under the counter and dabbed it to her nose. After a few minutes she began slowly pacing from one point to the other behind the desk. She stopped at the computer terminal, opened a drawer and took out four baseball-sized bean bags of different colors, and began juggling them in a pretty cascade. She almost lost her concentration when she heard Jack giving her an enthusiastic round of applause from the dining room steps.

"Something bothering you, Red?" he asked, taking his usual kibitzing seat on the customer side of the desk.

"Bothering me? What do you mean?" Rachel answered.

"You have to admit, a juggling desk manager isn't a sight one normally sees at Bollinger's Resort."

Rachel captured the bean bags neatly and returned them to the drawer. Then she crossed back to talk with her father-in-law. "Patty's gone to meet Patrick," she said.

"Oh," he said, sighing heavily. "I guess the fat is on the fire."

Rachel studied him for a moment and realized he had nothing more to say. Changing direction, she said, "That was the fastest I've ever known you to finish a meal."

He laughed. "After Patty left, nobody seemed to have anything to say anymore. Things got pretty dull. So I decided to come down and pester you for awhile."

Rachel: "I'm flattered."

Jack: "That didn't come out right, did it?"

Rachel: "That's all right; I understand." She rubbed at an imaginary smudge on the counter-top.

Jack: "Ah ...how about a little reminiscence time? I was in on the birth of Bollinger's, you know. I was just a kid at the time. I'll tell you a secret: when my father bought the place, it wasn't a nudist camp. It was just a regular run-down old lodge at the edge of the national forest. And he wasn't a nudist either ...but he was an opportunist. He had a little inheritance and was looking around for a good investment when he learned about the availability of this place. He thought up the idea of turning it nudist to drum up business. It isn't the most ideal spot for sun-worshippers. We lose a lot of seasonal visitors because of our fall and winter coolness. But he persevered, built up the facilities for inside activities, and hit the jackpot. We became nudists because it paid well."

He thought for a minute. "But it isn't why a person first comes to a place like this that's important, it's why he stays. My father, he stayed to protect and build on his investment. My son --your hubby --he stays for much the same reason. I think if he thought he could do better at a straight resort in the valley, he'd snap it up in a second. Me, I'm the maverick of the family. I was a normal twelve year old kid when my father brought me here, but when I took off my clothes and ran out into the open air for the first time, I knew I'd never want any other kind of life. I could never feel as loose and free as I do as a nudist. I just plain love the happy feeling. If this place closed down, I'd have to find myself another. I don't think I'd find one in as great a setting as Bollinger's. But I couldn't stay away from the nudist life."

He looked into Rachel's eyes, his face serious: "How about you, Red, would you want to stay if Darren saw a better opportunity on the outside and decided to pack up everything and head out?"

Rachel looked to the door through which Patty left. "I... don't know. It's not simply that I enjoy being nude ...which I do; it's that ...the world of clothes has never seemed right for me. That's it, I think: the world of clothes isn't right for me."

"That sounds fine to me, but you didn't answer my question."

"The question?"

"What would you do if Darren got out of the nudist business?"

"Jack! Darren's my husband."

"And?"

"'If Darren left the 'nudist business' ...well, he's my husband ...I'd ...Hey look, Darren wouldn't get out of the nudist business. He's third generation, you know. It'll never be an issue."

"But if it were?"

"You're asking the question as if you had doubts I'd go along with Darren if he left. Is that what you think?"

"It's not what I think that matters, is it?"

"Jack, I love Darren. If he went over to the outside ...I suppose I'd ... go with him."

"You suppose. But you said the world of clothes isn't for you."

" Right ...but Darren is my husband. I should go where he goes shouldn't I?"

"You sure should, Rachel." Darren had been standing at the foot of the dining room stairs listening to the conversation. Now he went behind the desk and put his arm around Rachel's waist. "There you go stirring things up again, dad. But Rachel is right. We're a team. We know how to compliment each other's skills. Her place is by my side sharing the management of whatever business endeavor we're into --each of us doing his --or her --part to make it a success."

Jack: "So even though the world of clothes isn't for Rachel, the place by your side is for Rachel --even if it is in the world of clothes; is that what you mean?"

Darren: "One of your 'think' arguments again --but I'll go along with it for now. First, the nudism thing. Sure, Rachel likes going naked; so do I. However, you can't read into nudism more than what's there. Nudism is a lark, a pure and simple diversion from the over-controlled grind of the day-to-day world --the best and freest diversion imaginable, but only a diversion. Nudity relieves life's pressures; it isn't a way of life in itself." Darren didn't notice his wife's frown as he continued: "We live in an insulated environment here and spend most of our waking hours naked, only putting on clothes to pick up a guest at the bus stop or when it's necessary to leave the compound for outside business, such as the coming sports show. But we shouldn't delude ourselves; as naked as we are, we're living the spirit of the clothed world trying to keep our business in the blue, just the same as our weekend and vacation guests do in their outside businesses. Look, we all have our feelings, emotions, likes and dislikes, preferences --personal things that, other things being equal, could influence any particular decision. But more important, we also --each of us --have responsibilities, which in the end must be the determining factors for those decisions. And most of one's responsibilities derive from the different 'places' one assumes in society, which would include one's place as a civilized human, one's place as an adult, one's place as a citizen, one's place in relation to God, one's place as a member of an organization, one's place as a signatory on a contract, one's place in a culture, one's place in a table of organization, one's place in a family, and one's place in a --yes --in a marriage or business partnership."

Jack: "One's place is more important than ...he is, right?"

Darren: "I don't know that I'd put it that way. It's being grown-up: we put away the fun, personal things of childhood in order to attend to our responsibilities to others and take our place in society. It's not an accident that we use the words 'belong to' in reference to our various affiliations: we 'belong' to a church or religion; we 'belong' to a political party; we 'belong' to our mates; we 'belong' to a union or association; we 'belong' to a partnership. Often we express the same idea using 'to be' verbs: I 'am' an American; I 'am' a Lutheran; I am an administrator; He 'is' the president; she 'is' a lawyer; they 'are' doctors; I 'am' Jewish or Irish or black or white. Use of those expressions implies our human recognition that we have duties to more than self-indulgence; we have higher obligations to the social structure from which everyone benefits. If everybody went his own way, we'd have chaos --anarchy, which would destroy a proud and secure way of life that evolved from twenty thousand painful years of human trial and error."

Jack: "And Rachel belongs at your side, doing her share for the business, and supporting your decisions?"

Darren: "Right. And you, dad: you've made a career out of retirement. And your place is harassing your devoted son."

Both men laughed.

Rachel was still staring at the doors through which Patty departed. Suddenly, she straightened up and turned to the men. "You guys and your constant debates! This time you're both making me mad. Darren, you don't know me at all if you think I stick by you through a sense of duty. I've had a lifetime of 'belonging': I'm at your side because I love you --'love,' that's a concept without chains --one of those 'magic,' intangible things you have such a hard time understanding. And, equally, I'm here because I love going bare-ass. And if you ever decided to trade Bollinger's for a place on the outside, I 'suppose' I'd end up going with you, but don't you ever kid yourself: I'd have to 'think about it.' And as long as I was 'thinking,' there'd be the outside possibility I wouldn't go with you. So don't be so damn smug with all that my 'place' crap.

"And you, Jack. What are you trying to provoke with this business about Darren giving up on the resort? There's no way that could happen. Anyway, he'd have let me know if he was even thinking of doing it. Like he said, we are partners."

Jack: "There's no way that could happen? How about that, Darren? Wasn't that dark suit you were talking with in the office last week Ben Harper, the C.E.O. of the Harper Resort chain?"

Rachel: "Ben Harper, here?"

Darren: "Sure, Ben was here. But it was just a 'fishing' trip --no offers on my part; no bids from him. If it developed into anything more specific, I'd have told you, Rachel. Your support in a big decision like that would be important to me."

Rachel: "My support? Important?" She broke away from her husband's arm, reached into the drawer again and picked up her bean-bags, and moved out from behind the desk. "It's my break time; I'll leave you two chiropractors to manipulate each other ...for a change. I'm tired," she said, and walked briskly out of the lobby, heading for the sandy beach by the stilling pool.

Darren Bollinger turned back to Jack Bollinger: "Someplace in the Constitution there must be a provision for 'justifiable patricide.'

Jack: "There might be." He abruptly took on a more serious look. "My dear practical minded son, please listen to a choice bit of fatherly advice. I've been watching you two for some time, and it's my unhappy conclusion that if you don't start taking notice of Rachel's feelings, you might someday lose that little redhead."

Darren: "But she has to learn ..."

Jack: "She has to learn nothing. But she does need to know you understand and respect her ...drives --her heart."

Darren: "Her heart? I don't understand."

Jack: "Let her have her space."

Darren: "I still don't understand."

Jack: "Stop thinking for her; stop drawing conclusions for her; stop assuming you can make her decisions for her."

Darren: "But she has to understand her place ...her responsibilities as a partner in Bollinger's ...as my wife."

Jack sat back in his kibitzing chair and shook his head slowly from side to side.

An undeviating eighteen year routine brought Patrick to the untended supermarket at one o'clock on Tuesday morning, November 10 --a week before Patty started up the path behind the tennis courts. Every Tuesday morning through all those years, he appeared at such a supermarket --always in the quiet hours of the day --sit on the cold tile floor by a checkout counter magazine rack, and, by the glow of a security light, carefully read the classified ads of the National Post, the popular tabloid, which invariably reached the stands on Monday afternoons. He made it a point never to appear in the same store more than twice during the course of a year. This particular Tuesday morning he seemed more distracted than usual. Less than forty-eight hours had passed since he witnessed one of the most dramatic and tragic events in the history of mankind --an event that left him virtually without friends and, in a way, future --and, most sadly, without hope.

Dutifully, he scanned the 'Personals,' but his mind hardly registered their usually fascinating story possibilities. He was an excellent reader, and remarkably fast, but this day his thoughts had wandered far afield from the task at hand. Finally, he set the paper on the floor by his side, leaned his head back against the magazine rack, and stared at the ceiling. His naked body presented a stark contrast to the commercialism that surrounded him. Suddenly his eyes opened and he frowned, as if waking to a shocking realization. Quickly he sat upright and pulled the tabloid back to his lap, paging almost wildly. He found it; after eighteen years of waiting and keeping an unwavering weekly watch, there it was --the one item among the thousands and thousands he had read over the years --the one item he never really thought he would ever see. He pinched his thigh to make sure he wasn't asleep, and he read it again, while a tear worked its way down his cheek.

PATRICK

The chapel

1:00 p.m. -11/17/87

MARIANNE

At six-four, Patrick stood tall, long legged, and wiry lean. His hair, once a dark blond, had evolved as he matured into an almost brown tint. It was neatly trimmed and brushed back at his temples. His skin was just dark enough to reflect well his healthy outdoor way of life. His stomach was solid and hard above a slim abdomen. A normal patch of pubic hair framed a normal sized, uncircumcised penis.

Patrick's face carried on the slim tradition of his body. He had a long, straight nose and a narrow lipped mouth, which tended mostly to the serious lately; although in the past he was known to have had a ready and warm smile. He had an almost permanent worried forehead over full eyebrows, and he kept his eyelids less than fully open, giving him a wary, alert appearance. The eyes themselves were dark blue.

His was a friendly, interested, but overall reserved personality. He enjoyed listening more than talking, and, therefore, he made friends easily. Of course, there was a darker side: he could work up a typically hot Irish temper when he found good cause --but those occasions were rare. Mostly he had a good sense of humor. However, in recent years he had developed a pensive attitude that often resulted in his missing the point of a good joke because his attention had wandered off.

He arrived at the Chapel in the Woods an hour ahead of the appointed time, and immediately set to nervous pacing. Once in a while he'd sit on one of the concrete benches, but never for long and never relaxed.

The chapel was constructed in circular form approximately sixty feet in diameter. Along the eastern portion of the circumference was a ten foot long altar table built higher in its center than on either side. Concrete benches followed the remainder of the perimeter with occasional spaces provided for ingress and egress. There were two more rows of benches to the inside, leaving a small area in the center, in which could be seen dusty remains of many cozy campfires.

Patty had just completed the last turn in the path, which opened on the chapel area --and she stopped. She spent the next few minutes staring at the naked man seated irreverently on the altar table, his back to her. Ordinarily, Patrick's well-tuned senses would have warned him of the girl's presence. All his life survival had been a minute-to-minute all-out effort for him. Even in sleep he could not permit himself a moment's let up. However, this day his emotions had overridden his seasoned alarm system. The woeful depression resulting from very recent shocking events mingled with the tense anticipation of a reunion with his lost Marianne to eliminate caution from its first priority position in his more normal mind-set. So Patty was able to do what few humans have ever done: study at almost leisure the unguarded back of the man called Patrick.

Finally, she sighed deeply and in little more than a whisper spoke the name of the one she was looking for: "Patrick?"

Instantly he leapt off the altar table and turned in the direction of the unexpected voice. "Marianne!" he said. Then he saw the girl, now touching a hand to her chest --startled by his sharp response. On two counts was he stunned by the sight of her. First, and most obvious, it wasn't Marianne --but her calling his name meant she expected him to be here. And second, he was overwhelmed by her remarkable natural beauty, which was accentuated by a real or imagined glow ...aura ...that seemed to frame her nude body. His sudden smile faded. For the first time in his life he was totally nonplused. His futility showed as he repeated the name in the form of a question. "Marianne?"

"I'm Patricia ...Patty," she said, and she stepped toward him, offering the envelope she had carried with her from the lodge. "Marianne ...is my mother. She wanted me to give this to you ...You are Patrick, aren't you?"

"Yes ...I'm Patrick," he answered as he absently reached for the envelope. "You're Marianne's daughter?"

Patty smiled, and nodded her head once.

Patrick gazed at the girl for a time longer before asking softly, "Marianne: is she all right?"

Patty: "She's fine."

He tapped the edge of the envelope in the palm of his hand. "Well... do you want to sit down?" he asked, pointing with the envelope to a concrete bench on the outer ring. Patty sat down cross-legged on the bench he indicated as Patrick took a place facing her from a bench in the next inner ring. "You're ...very pretty," he said.

Patty, still smiling: "Thank you."

Patrick: "You'd be ...sixteen ...seventeen ...?"

Patty: "Seventeen."

Patrick: "Seventeen ...yes." Nervously, he took his eyes from her, and studied the envelope on which his name was written in a neat feminine script. He looked back at Patty and lifted the envelope slightly in her direction. "May 1?"

Patty: "Please."

Patrick tapped an end of the envelope on the bench beside him, carefully tore open the other end, and pulled out the letter inside. He wasn't long in reading the page, but when he finished, he looked up for a moment at Patty, and then read it again. This time when he was done, he sighed heavily and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his eyes looking to the ground at his feet. The letter dangled loosely from the fingers of his right hand. Patty couldn't see the tears resting just below his eyelids.

Patty allowed him time for whatever was passing through his mind. However, when it appeared he was totally lost in his thoughts, she cleared her throat softly, and tentatively interrupted: "Patrick? ...Are ...are you my father?" When he looked up at her, she was taken aback by his wet eyes and humorless smile. But when the smile quickly turned warm, she relaxed somewhat. He continued looking at her for what seemed to her a long time. Finally, he reached out and, without speaking, handed her the letter. She hesitated, fidgeting with the paper now in her hands. Then it was her turn to sigh. After biting nervously on her lower lip, she turned her attention to the words on the page.

November 14

Dearest Patrick,

Your reading this letter means that you have kept your vigil for all these years. I am overwhelmed. We were as children then, and no one can be expected to hold to vows made in youthful passion. I am overwhelmed, but I admit, selfishly, I am pleased.

I also admit that through all these years my own love for you, Patrick, has never waned. And in my fashion I, too, have kept a vigil. There has never been another whom I could love as I did you that wonderful summer --and all summers since.

Our decision was right, though. Neither of us could have lived in the world of the other. I am happy doing my thing, moving through the pressure-cooker life of the business world. I eat up the challenge. Each day I am dared to compete with the wolves and foxes --and snakes of high finance. And when I win, which I'm doing more often as I mature, I am exhilarated. I loved our forests, mountains, and oceans --they showed me there was such a thing as peace and solitude. But I thrive on the second to second charge and excitement of computer clicks, telephone beeps, and the buzz of a hundred conversations at one time flying over the top of my cubicle. And I know you could never exist in this cold, smoked glass, air-conditioned, man-made environment with all its man-made stresses. But, oh, my beloved Patrick, if I could have, or if you could have, we'd have shown the world an affair that would have made amateurs of Romeo and Juliette.

I hope my not being with you at the Chapel in the Woods doesn't hurt you. For all the world I wouldn't want to hurt you. You don't know how I pleaded with myself to be with you today. However, it would only have meant another parting. Things haven't changed --I have to be what I am, and you have to be what you are. But, Patrick, I am sending you my heart, the essence of my being; I am turning over to you my daughter Patricia. She is a part of you, too, my love. I present to you your daughter, the child born of our passion. In this I've been far luckier than you. I've had with me through the years our child, a constant reminder of our beautiful week together. In looks she is more you than me, don't you think? Whenever I pined to look again into your eyes, which happened so many hundreds of times, all I had to do was call my --our --Patty to my side, and you were here.

When she was born, I made a promise to myself that someday she would know her magical, mystical father. That day has come. I know in your world "growing up time" comes a lot earlier. Please forgive me for holding on many years longer, but she is half my world too.

But the time has come; I can hold onto her no longer. She has come to a turning point, when decisions have to be made, and though the alternatives are clear-cut enough, she is finding herself torn. I hear her more and more saying, "Something's missing" or "There's something else." It's tortured me, because I've known all along what the "Something" was: you, Patrick, you and your world. It, too, has to be an alternative, a choice for her. Yet I fear once she knows, I'll lose her --but she has to know about the other side of her spirit.

I think she has your magic, Patrick. There are times I've seen "The Glow." And if she does have your magic, I'm afraid I've for sure lost her. Still, I can't decide her destiny for her. She needs to have the closed door in her heart opened so she can find her own way.

So I give Patty to you. Introduce her to her world, her people. Teach her her culture. Teach her her beautiful heritage --and if she has the "magic," teach her that too.

How I envy Patty right now. She is with you. As I write this letter I think, would it be so bad? Another summer, perhaps? But, again, what was true eighteen years ago is just as true now --I suppose.

In the meantime, meet your daughter. She's a wonderful girl; you'll be proud of her. And Patty, because I know you will read this letter, meet your father. He's a kind and sensitive soul --the only man I have ever loved; the only man I will ever love.

My heart will always be with you --with you both.

Marianne

Patty: "Shouldn't we be hugging or sobbing joyfully like they do on big television shows?" She played with the letter nervously.

Patrick: "Later, maybe ...maybe after we know each other ...maybe then we'll want to hug and sob joyfully."

Patty: "So ..."

Patrick: "So ..." He took the letter again and stared at it for a few moments. "Decisions ...Why don't we start there?"

Patty sighed nervously, and then recounted the problems she was having in making a choice of possible futures.

Patrick: "And it would apparently make a difference in the school you'd have to enroll in."

Patty nodded.

There was another pause as Patrick looked for a point to latch onto. "Your interest in the sisterhood, do you mind talking about it?"

Patty: "No ...but there's not much to say. I've been in Catholic school all my life, you know. I've always enjoyed hearing the stories about Jesus and the things he taught and said. He always talked about people caring for each other, things like that. It bothered me a lot how people were so indifferent to their neighbors. Jesus taught that there was a better way. I have to admit I don't understand everything the Church says about how we should live: they make everything sound so formidable; they want to watch over everything people do. I don't think all that is necessary. But Jesus makes sense to me. I figure the best way I can support what he taught is to commit myself to him, and the sisterhood is the best way to demonstrate that commitment."

Patrick: "'People are indifferent to their neighbors.' What do you mean?"

Patty: "Oh, you know ...there's so much killing and hurting just for the excitement of it, with no concern about the people's feelings who are being hurt. But more than the ones who are cruel for the kicks: when people think what they're doing is important, they're willing to be just as unprincipled, murderous and cruel --like they'll commit murder while they're robbing somebody. And even good people will kill and torture because they have a good cause, such as religion or patriotism or war. And it's not only the killing and torturing. Big companies put poison in the air and water and on our food to make bigger profits, or they will fire a lot of people because of a selfish take-over thing, or religious people will push for laws to take rights away from others because their religions don't believe in them, or governments will take away the property of people for the good of everybody, or people won't be given the best medical care because they can't pay the price for it. There are all sorts of things like that. People don't seem to care if what they want to do hurts somebody else, and they can find a way to rationalize anything they want to do.

"Jesus wasn't that way. He said to love your brother --and your enemy, give to the poor, take the last place at the table, be peacemakers, don't throw the first stone, don't brag about the gifts you give, welcome back the prodigal son, thirst for justice, turn the other cheek, be humble, be kind, not be envious or jealous or selfish."

Patrick: "So ...you want to be a nun to show your belief in the teachings of Jesus. And you want to do the things a nun does: live in a cell, pray and meditate every spare minute and often for hours at a time, do humbling jobs, give up sexual things, obey orders."

Patty, smiling: "There's a lot more to it even than that. But, no, I don't mind doing those things. I'm mostly by myself anyway. I don't fit into the same social activities as the other kids. I mostly look after my own business and do the work I'm expected to do."

Patrick: "You don't mind ...but is that what you want?"

Patty: "I... want to support Jesus. I want to show I love him ...what he teaches. I... I don't know what I want for myself, but that's not important anyway; I haven't seen anything else I'd want for myself. None of the things I'm deciding between is something I know I want. I'm looking at a career in math and physics because I'm good at it, and I'm considering the family enterprise because ...it's challenging ...and, well, it's the family enterprise."

Patrick: "Just one more thing about being a nun: do you believe in Jesus?"

Patty: "I... believe in ...his teaching. Down deep inside I don't know what to think about the soul, or heaven or hell, or eternity, or what God really is, or if Jesus is really his son. Those things I have to take on faith, I guess. I don't understand much of any of it. But I do like what he taught, and that's what I think is important."

Silence fell upon the new father and daughter, which lasted several minutes, until Patty finally broke in: "And you, Patrick. What about you? Some of the people back at the lodge said you were 'magic' ...mother said that in her letter too.

Patrick: "People back at the lodge?"

Patty: "Jack Bollinger, Jerry and Marnie Schulman, Ernie Bergen."

Patrick: "They're here? What did they tell you?"

Patty: "They just sort of hinted around. They said it was a secret they couldn't say much about. But they did say 'magic,' and that I might have it --like mother said. I'm sure they didn't mean magic like for-real magic. I figured they meant more like 'mysterious' or 'deep."'

Patrick: "Maybe so."

Patty: "Yes ...maybe so." She bit her lip again. "Then what's the 'mystery'? Mother said to teach me my heritage, as if it's something ... unusual. Is that the 'mystery'?"

Patrick: "Your heritage ..."He arose and, hands on hips, walked a complete lap around the chapel, ending exactly where he started: seated on the bench facing the girl. Tears were in his eyes again as he leaned forward touching his hands to her knees. "My new-born seventeen year old child, you're looking at all there is to your heritage, your culture. I'm what's left --me; and a quiet couple staying around the Okefenokee right now, I think ...and, well, you, Patty. The whole hope of the future of this heritage ...here on Earth is gone. For all practical purposes it died ... nine days ago, in the Irish Wilderness ...in the Missouri Ozarks. There's nothing I can tell you that has meaning any more --that can make any difference. Anything you learn can only hurt you. You don't need that. You're living a good life, with a wonderful mother. The decisions you have to make are difficult, but you can handle them. You don't need the complication of a dead alternative."

Patty: "No ...no, no, no. You can't show me the puzzle piece I've been looking for all my life, and then tell me the picture doesn't mean anything. I have a history now --from both my parents, just like other kids. I have a feeling it's important ...the way everybody dances around the subject and all --the way you're dancing around it ...but mostly because I have a lack; I'm incomplete --I can feel it. All my life I've been looking ..." Tears were in her eyes this time.

Patrick cupped her face in his hands. "I guess I can't deny my daughter the knowledge of her special roots ...even though there's little she can do with the knowing. However, you have to understand that in knowing you might ...you probably will... end up the loneliest person in the world."

Patty, looking down: "That ...wouldn't be so different."

Patrick stood up, rubbing the back of his neck, looking for the best place to start. "Patty," he said, "yours is a unique inheritance -- unbelievable in almost every aspect. And none of it will make any sense to you until you witness the 'magic' for yourself, and until you become a part of that 'magic' yourself. Then everything I say will fall into place."

Patty: "I... don't understand."

Patrick smiled: "You will. For now, just watch." He dropped the letter in her lap.

Patty, totally confused, stared at her father, and while she stared ... he vanished. Without her blinking her eyes, he vanished --he disappeared. She was looking at him when suddenly she could only see the woods that had been behind him. A second later she felt a thrill, as if a charge of electricity passed through her body, and then she sensed the presence of Patrick again --but inside her body --inside her head. And he was gone again, until a moment later when he reappeared seated on the bench in front of her, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

Patty put her hands to her cheeks. "What happened?" she cried out.

Patrick: "It's what people call 'magic.' I call it 'the wave.'

Patty: "Were ...were you inside me?"

Patrick: "Yes, my little girl, I was."

Patty: "But how ..."

Patrick: "No explanations yet ...until after all the demonstrations. It will make little enough sense even then. But first, you felt the ... electricity?"

Patty: "Electricity? Yes, I did feel a kind of shock ...an electrical shock."

Patrick: "That was the verification of what your mother suspected, and what I knew had to be true: you are ...you have the 'magic.' When I 'zip' normal humans there is no electric shock. The shock only comes when zipping people of my ...our blood. When it happens, both of us can feel it: the one in the wave and the one being zipped."

Patty: "I'm ...I'm all mixed up."

Patrick: "Like the man said, 'You ain't seen nothin yet.' Now for the ride of your life. It might be better for you if we stand up for this." They both arose and absently dusted themselves off, as if mirror images of each other. "Before we go, though, some pressing business," he said and turned slightly away and, with his hands on his hips, casually urinated in a neat arc to the ground between the benches.

Even though she was thoroughly awestruck by the impossible events taking place, Patty couldn't help giggling to herself on seeing Patrick's completely indifferent urination demonstration. "And that's a second verification of our kinship," she said to herself.

Then Patrick bent down and picked up the letter that had fallen to the ground from Patty's lap when she stood up. He slowly, deliberately tore it into tiny unreadable pieces, and flung them into the light breeze. "And now for an adventure you. couldn't have imagined in your wildest dreams." The pieces flipped and spun and teased, and one by one found places within the month-old tier of fallen autumn leaves. "Rule number one in what I'm about to show you --first and foremost, not ever to be forgotten -- memorize, memorize, memorize: never, ever have any article of clothing on any part of your body --no shoes, no rings, no jewelry, no band-aid. Don't carry a thing: not a stick, not a purse, not a box, not a ...precious letter from someone you love dearly. You may hold a person's hand, or carry a person -- if you can, but that person must follow the same rules."

He grasped Patty's hand. "As the man says, 'Away we go!'"

Suddenly Patty was weightless, lifting slowly off the ground like one of those hot-air balloons at the Fourth of July celebration. She held Patrick's hand, but she had no feeling of it. In fact, she had no 'feeling' of anything: not her hands or feet or head, or any part of her body --she had no body, nor, she realized, any of her normal senses. As she drifted slowly around the perimeter of the Chapel in the Woods, she was aware that she was not actually 'seeing' the concrete benches, or the dead campfire ashes, or the bare oak trees of the forest, yet she knew there presence in colorful detail. The scene was showing itself in her ...in her mind? No ...she was without body or brain. Rather, she was aware of her surroundings in her ... thoughts, as she would picture events in a dream. She couldn't smell the pines of the forest, but she was aware of the scent --precisely aware. She was aware of the soft breeze wending its way across the hilltop, but she didn't 'feel' it against her face. She was aware of the sound of the crisp leaves being blown over the forest floor, but it was an awareness not sensed through her normal hearing. She was bodiless, eyeless, earless, noseless, tongueless, and skinless: nonetheless, she just knew everything her senses would have ordinarily transmitted through her nervous system.

"Don't analyze it Patty; relax --enjoy the :ride. Let yourself go," she said to herself. No, not to herself ...she hadn't said that. "You did and you didn't. We're both one soul now. What you think, I think; what I think, you think. Mostly, that is. I can control what I let out of my thoughts; you haven't learned that yet. How about let's pick up the pace?"

They were moving away from the chapel, into the woods, and through the trees. Through the trees? Right through the trees --in one side of the trunk and out the other side of the trunk! Now above the trees --high above the trees, looking down on the panorama of Bollinger's: the lodge and the modern annex; the tennis courts behind and the pool table lawn in front leading down to the lake; the berm, the stilling pool, and the spillway; the road leading out to the highway and the road leading to the rustic cabins in the woods, their rusting corrugated roofs playing hide and seek between the tree branches; the incongruous tiny, white, live pearls randomly situated throughout, as they might have fallen from a broken necklace.

Abruptly they were diving --at a faster clip now --down toward the tennis courts. As the portly gentleman stretched to serve, they entered his penis, moving straight up through his body --through straining intestines, ulcerated stomach, heart with its by-passed arteries, throat, dentures, brain filled with determination ...and fear, and out through his left ear. He didn't miss a beat in his swing.

Quickly, they flowed into the lodge: through several empty rooms --and one with a couple making love on a gently rocking bed. Into the lobby: in Jack's rump and out his nose --he radiated worry ...about Rachel... and Patty. Outside again, moving along about a foot above the ground down to the beach, where Rachel was kneeling in the sand, comfortably sitting back on her heels --juggling ... and crying. "Through her, Patrick, please." So through Rachel they went, entering a bean bag as it dropped into her palm, transferring into her hand before she could pop" the beanbag up again. Up her arm, through her shoulder, her neck, her brain --thoughts of frustration, resignation; thoughts of a happy forest idyll with Patty ... then they experienced a flash --a bright, white light, which dissolved as they moved out of Rachel's head and on up toward the sky.

Rachel fumbled with the beanbags, finally gathering them in before any were dropped. A chill, a shiver had rolled through her body --almost like an electric shock ...and an eerie feeling of closeness to Patty ...and someone else. She shrugged her shoulders, arose, and wandered back toward the lodge.

By this time Patrick and Patty had risen above the thin layer of cirrus clouds drifting high over the flamboyant Sierra Nevadas --and yet higher until the whole disc of the hemisphere lay below them, round-framed by the glow of the Hawaiian Islands and the dark blue of the Pacific horizon, the white icecap above Alaska and Canada and the white haze emanating from the Greenland Glacier, the colder blue of the Atlantic turning at its rim into the darkness of the earth's shadow, and to the southeast the darker green of the South American jungles. The same view Patty had seen on the thirteen inch globe in every classroom of her school, but uncluttered by lines, artificial splotches of mismatched colors, tiny circles, and varied sized community, national, continental, and oceanic titles cluttering up the landscape --and without the bottom-heavy figure eight analemma she was used to seeing southwest of Baja California.

They cruised around for a few minutes at this height absorbing a view Patty thought only astronauts would ever know. Then a vertical nosedive, fast beyond description, leveling out just above the ...the Alamo! Now turning generally west and within seconds slipping in to the Chapel in the Woods in Bollinger's Resort by the Sequoia National Forest in California.

On to Chapter 4

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Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18

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