Earlier this month, I had a book signing for my new murder mystery Big Easy.  It was on the patio of Kang’s Asian Bistro in Edmond, here in Oklahoma, and about a hundred people attended.  Here is a link to the video on YouTube.  Please check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-E9a5i-rw 

Growing up in Vivian, days ran the gamut from boring to even more boring.  Nothing ever seemed to happen much in the sleepy bayou town.  At least that's how we excitement-hungry teens usually felt.  I recall only one murder in Vivian - maybe the only one ever.  It involved the parents of one of my high school classmates.  The mother was going out every night to Mrs. Ray's, one of the local honky tonks, and carousing until the wee hours.  Supposedly, when her husband found her undies in the glove compartment of their car he went berserk and killed her with a ball peen hammer.

He tossed the murder weapon into the Myrtis Mill Pond (not a smart move as the pond is less than ten feet deep.)  When confronted, he readily confessed the killing.

The Myrtis Mill Pond lies on the west side of town, about five miles from the Texas border, and became an important destination for Vivianites, on dates with little else to see or do.  Whenever I visit, I have to pass the location, and my psyche never fails to overflow with poignant memories.

The pond plays an important role in my short story Southern Fried Murder.

P.S. – The sheriff and his deputy in Southern Fried Murder became the models for the sheriff and deputy in my first novel Ghost of a Chance.  For those of you that may have missed it, here is a link to the YouTube video for Ghost.  While there, please check out my other book trailer videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdOBGlCBVGc

Here is a link to my new trailer for Ghost of a Chance.  Please check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdOBGlCBVGc 

Immortal song stylist Billy Holiday is credited with writing and performing the first anti-racist song called Strange Fruit.  The song is about lynching, more particularly the lynching of black men, sometimes in the south, but not always.  This haunting song is still as powerful as it was during its first performance.  Here is a link to a YouTube video (mostly audio).  Please check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdnD39GYVU

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Here is a link to the book trailer for A Gathering of Diamonds, soon to be available in hard cover.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DLdvE6prJ0

I believe in fantasy.

As I mentioned in my last post, my camera is fritzing.  Here are a few pics that I took of the full moon the other night.  They turned out rather strange and I thought I would share them with you.

   

Here is the link to my Monday book signing video at Kang’s (great place) in Edmond, OK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-E9a5i-rw

After working on some little gas wells in Noble County today, I had lunch at the Kumback Café in Perry.  The little café is across the street from the county courthouse, the centerpiece of the town square.  Many if not most of the shops and stores are closed – lack of business I suppose.  It is a pity because the little town has the ambience and uniqueness of such places as Eureka Springs, Arkansas and Branson, Missouri.

 

I digress.  The Kumback Café, I learned, started business in 1926 and has had only three owners.  I had the barbecue platter (ribs, brisket, and Polish sausage).  The baked beans were wonderful and the potato salad the best I have ever tasted.  I am not kidding!

 

Full beyond the point of bursting, I was unable to resist one of the twelve different kinds of homemade pie.  I had butterscotch pie.  Matt, the person with me had strawberry.  His looked as good as mine tasted but he didn’t offer to share.  Come to think of it neither did I.

 

My digital camera malfunctioned so I have no pics to show you.  That’s all right because I’ll be back!  Meantime, here’s a link to my Monday booksigning at Kang’s in Edmond, OK.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-E9a5i-rw

 

Earlier this year I posted a story called Summer of Bologna, about my misadventures at geology summer field camp in Arkansas.  As I read through the story again tonight, I remembered a couple of other things that happened to me that summer.  Although funny now, they were not so funny then.

 

The man that taught the course, Dr. D, had brought along his wife and two children, and his two-year-old son Tommy was quite a handful.  You may remember my mapping partner Roy.  Our friendship went from good, to bad, to even worse before finally turning in the right direction.  We were friends again by the end of our project and had borrowed the D’s tiny barbecue pit to grill a couple of steaks.  It was the weekend; we had time off and a few extra bucks to purchase steaks, bakes and two six-packs of beer in a plastic cooler.

 

Dr. D had offered the use of his barbecue pit with the proviso that we would return it cleaner than we got it.  No problem, we thought.  That was before we began drinking beer and eating watermelon – yes we had also purchased a watermelon and had chilled it to perfection in the very chilly White River.

 

Our beer was half gone by the time we had eaten our steaks and started on the icy watermelon.  It was about then that Dr. Ds son Tommy came running down the stairs.  Feeling giddy, Roy spat a watermelon seed at him and it stuck on his bare chest.  Maybe it doesn’t sound so funny now, but Roy and I had drunk just enough beer to think so.  Between hysterical laughter, we both began spitting seeds at the kid.

 

At first, Tommy joined in the joke but soon realized that he was the butt of it.  Covered with sticky watermelon seeds, he rushed back up the stairs, wailing like a banshee as he did.  He soon returned with Dr. D.  The Professor was not happy.

 

“Having a good time, boys?” he asked.

 

Dr. D’s question sent us both into a belly-rolling fit of laughter.  Grabbing his tattle-tale kid by the hand, Dr. D did an angry about face and huffed away up the stairs.  Too inebriated to clean the barbecue pit, we left it outside with the intention of cleaning it the next day.  It rained that night, making a mess of the little stove.  Tommy found it the next morning before Roy and I, getting soot and barbecue sauce all over his best Sunday church clothes.

 

Our good grades were already pretty much beyond hope.  That is true, but one more incident occurred the last week of field camp that further sealed my fate.  I had a cheap typewriter and I was using it to prepare my final report.  It was so hot in the basement that I took the machine outside to a picnic table.  After trying unsuccessfully to correctly seat the ribbon, I ripped it off the reel and threw it down the hill.  Yes, you got it.  Tommy found the ribbon.  Covered with ink and wrapped in the inky tape, he was in a full-blown crying snit when he finally found his father.

 

Well, I passed the course anyway, albeit with a cee.  Years later, I realize none of this story so.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Please check out the Big Easy video on YouTube.  Just follow the link below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpIqaHJUBE 

Kang's Asian Kitchen and Eric Wilder are hosting a book signing of Wilder's latest thriller, Big Easy. Set in Post-Katrina New Orleans, the book features a spicy taste of the venerable city.   more »

All the recent rainy weather in Oklahoma has produced some spectacular cloud formations.  Here are a couple.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com 

 

Eric will be signing his new book Big Easy, Monday, June 4th at Kang’s in Edmond, Oklahoma.  Please join us. http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Caddo Lake, in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, is the location of Eric Wilder's new novel, Ghost of a Chance. Protagonist Buck McDivit leaves his home in Oklahoma and travels to East Texas. Someone has murdered his newly found Aunt Emma Fitzgerald. Buck is apparently the sole heir to Fitzgerald Island, and the marina and fishing lodge on it. Here is an excerpt from Ghost, describing what Buck saw when he first arrived:

"James T. "Buck" McDivit had come to Texas for answers. What he found was a giant lake amid a maze of vines, creepers and lily pads. A place that seemed more like Louisiana than Texas. He quickly realized it was different from both states. Cypress trees grew in abundance, both in the water and out, and Spanish moss, wafting in slow-motion waves, hung from their limbs, caressing the lake's coffee-colored surface. Only the head of a slow-swimming snake disrupted the lake's tranquility.

East Texas is a place far different from Buck's own home on the flat plains of central Oklahoma – a mysterious locale that seemed like a virtual botanical garden replete with subtropical greenery and a climate to match. Buck felt a thousand miles from home.

Interstate highway, replaced by rural Texas blacktop, had long since disappeared in his rearview mirror. Untended hollyhocks, blooming in lavender flower falls that saturated humid air with their cloying fragrances, grew wild beside the road. Damp pathways, none leading anywhere in particular, pierced the tangle of vegetation as a flock of cattle egrets winged high overhead.

Egrets weren't the only wildlife in abundance, nor were oak, cypress and hollyhock the only plants bordering the road. Cascades of blue impatiens, crimson-blossomed rosebushes and clumps of green willow painted the terrain from a diverse palette of color.”

East Texas is indeed an exotic and mysterious area. Buck meets Pearl and Raymond Johnson, caretakers of Fitzgerald Marina, and their two sons, Ray and Wiley. He soon learns that someone has designs on the islands and is intent upon wresting it from him. Could it be relentless land developer Hogg Nation? Maybe it's Colonel Clayton Richardson, bank and ultra-wealthy plantation owner that has a mortgage on the island. Possibly it's Jefferson Travis, racist judge that leads the New Southern Right, a local hate group, or Bones Malone, amateur archeologist and relic hunter, and former lover of Emma Fitzgerald. And, there are the two recently released recidivists, Deacon John and Humpback. These skinheads are after lost Confederate gold from a sunken riverboat and don't care who they have to kill to find it.

Buck meets beautiful Lila Richardson, local antiquities expert and daughter of Clayton Richardson, and is instantly smitten. Is she as complicit as her father and racist uncle, Judge Jefferson Travis? Can Buck really trust her?

Many interesting characters inhabit Fitzgerald Island and the touristy village of Deception. Will Buck get the girl? Will he save the island? Will he save himself? Read Ghost of a Chance and find out. It is available at many places on the web and at http://www.gondwanapress.com .

I am hesitant to say that rain has plagued central Oklahoma for the past two months.  This year, we have already had more than 14" of rainfall in Edmond.  Last year, we were in the throes of a world-class drought.  Still, toadstools are popping up in my front yard, joined by mold, mildew and giant mosquitoes.

It's not all bad.  Tonight, I saw something I've seen only once or twice, and then only in the tropics:  strange lights.  At dusk, the sky looked like something from a filter-crazy Adobe Photoshop artist, high on hallucigenic drugs.  The colors were all violets, mauves and strange shades of blue.  I took a few pics with my digital camera, but I will be surprised to see in pixels what I saw tonight.  The sky, in short, was quiet spectacular, and it reminded me of my hippy days in the sixties, this time without the pot and LSD.

http://www.gondwanapress.com  http://www.ericwilder.com

For those of you that follow this blog, you know everything about the subsurface interests me.  The New Madrid Fault caused the mighty Mississippi River to change its direction from south to north for a day or so.  Legend says that it was responsible for creating Caddo Lake in northwest Louisiana and east Texas.  If a quake of the same magnitude occurred today, it would result in death and devastation beyond what anyone in this country has ever experienced.  http://www.ericwilder.com

Source of Major Earthquakes Discovered Beneath U.S. Heartland - Yahoo! News

Here is a pic I took of my cousin Skip and his wife Connie during a 1998 trip.

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The downtown Oklahoma City annual art's festival, now going through Sunday, started out as a great idea.  Years ago, when the City held the event in front of the courthouse, they reserved space for ticky-tacky artists and craftspeople that sold things like cedar bird houses, wind chimes and ornamental belt buckles.  It always seemed there were more people browsing this part of the show than the "fine" art booths across the street.

The ticky-tack portion of the old Art's Festival was a little like exploring a thrift store.  You never knew what treasure you might find.  And there was food to taste.  My favorite, and just about everyone else's, was the Indian Taco, a treat that was available no where else in the world.

Now, the Festival has moved down the street and the ticky-tacky artists and craftspeople are gone.  Only the "fine" art remains and it is pretty much the same, year-after-year.  Still, there is the food court which offers a little taste of just about every restaurant in OKC.  Everyone's favorite, though, remains the Indian Taco, still around after all these years.

Next weekend is the Edmond Art's Festival, just up the street.  Growing larger every year, this event still offers a little ticky-tack.  The best ticky-tack festival of all, however, is the Paseo Arts Festival held in May.  As for the festival in downtown OKC, I say bring back the ticky-tack.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

   

http://www.gondwanapress.com  http://www.ericwilder.com

My daughter Kate turned 14 today and she, Marilyn and I celebrated at Junior’s.  Junior’s is a nightclub and restaurant in the basement of Oklahoma City’s Oil Center.  Two books written after the Penn Square Bank debacle of the 80s, Belly Up and Funny Money both immortalized Junior’s.

Junior Simon opened the restaurant in the 70s as an exclusive club for the City’s wealthy and newly-rich oil millionaires.  His menu consisted of steak, chicken or lobster.  His food was always expensive but he always divided the bill between food and drinks.  You guessed it.  Drinks always cost more than dinner.

Junior Simon was one of the best persons that I’ve ever met.  After the oil bust, I was left dead broke and still owing Junior more than $3000.

“Junior,” I told him.  “I’m broke and I don’t have a pot to pee in, but if you’ll bear with me, I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“Eric, I know you will,” he said, giving my shoulder a fatherly pat.

Yes, I finally paid Junior back, a hundred bucks at a time.  Still, I knew that if I had never given him a penny, he would have forgiven me just as I’m sure that he did many of his customers not as fortunate as I.

I have enough stories about Junior’s and my adventures there over the years to fill a fairly thick book.  I knew, or know, all the players in Funny Money and Belly Up personally.  Hell! I was a player in the last oil boom and a victim in the last oil bust.  Yes, there are stories, untold stories, that are almost unbelievable, even to myself, even to myself and I lived them.

Well, tonight Kate, Marilyn and I revisited the scene of the crime and here are a few pics from the visit.

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What a difference a year makes.  This time last year, we were in the midst of a five year drought and had less than 4” of rain.  We had already had almost 13” this morning and it poured hard and heavy all day long.  Hey, I’m glad that I cut my grass this weekend.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

http://www.gondwanapress.com  http://www.ericwilder.com

http://www.gondwanapress.com  http://www.ericwilder.com

The recent shooting at Virginia Tech has prompted people’s thoughts to return to similar shootings around the country.  The Edmond Post Office Massacre, the shooting that prompted the phrase “going postal,” is one such event.  The shootings happened on August 20, 1986 and I wrote an article about it last anniversary.  Lately, I have recorded hundreds of hits from people searching the internet for the event.  Today, I received a comment from a woman actually present during the Edmond shooting and her account is very compelling.  It is already on the site as a comment, but I am republishing it today in its entirety because I feel people need to read this.  Even after 21 years, the event obviously remains an open wound with so many people.  It also prompts my question: Where were all the grief counselors in 1986?

 

Comment from Edmond Postal Worker

 

I survived the Edmond Post Office massacre. Patrick Sherrill was not ever married. The description I've read here is incorrect.
He was a relief carrier. He would carry different routes on different days, and was making delivery errors (easy enough if you're not that familiar with a route). He also delivered mail later than the customers were used to getting it. When people called to complain, they spoke to supervisors. These supervisors didn't like dealing with unhappy people. Patrick was counseled to do a better job, but the best relief carrier on the planet will make errors, and will deliver later than the regular carrier.
I was present on the afternoon of Aug. 19, 1986, when Patrick was reprimanded by two supervisors in a glassed-in office. The door was closed, but you could see that one supervisor in particular was yelling at Patrick.
When Patrick came out of the office, he did a German goose-step march to the breakroom where he used the pay phone. We learned later that he had called Veterans Affairs to ask for their help in getting an immediate transfer to a different post office. Nothing happens immediately with the postal service, and the next morning he began killing people. On the afternoon before the killings, he approached a female clerk who had been kind to him (while most people ignored him or hassled him) and asked her if she was coming to work the next day. She replied, "Of course." He told her she should stay home.
He began with one of the two supervisors who had spoken to him the previous day. The other supervisor had, for the first time ever, overslept. He was an hour late when the killings began. Patrick must have thought that the man wasn't coming in that day.
The second victim was Mike Rockne, grandson of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.
14 died, 7 others wounded. Some of the wounded survived because they played dead. I heard screams, begging, and a lot of shots. The smell of burnt gunpowder in the building was horrible.
Everything took no more than 15-20 minutes.
I was crouched on the floor, in plain view, and knew he would kill me. I just hoped it would be fast, that it wouldn't hurt, and I wondered if I would even know when it happened. I was calm. There was no way out of the building, I thought, because someone had run to some exits and returned to tell me that Patrick had chained and locked them closed.
A co-worker took me by the arm and led me up front to the customer service counter. We went over the counter and out the front door. This turned out to be an exit that people had used prior to us; there was blood on the counter. As we went out the door, I saw the second supervisor driving up in his truck with a puzzled look on his face, as postal workers, ambulances, police, the S.W.A.T. team were at the sides of the building, and wounded were laid out on the grass.
My former husband heard the news on the radio that someone had been shot at the Edmond Post Office. He called the office. We know now that it was Patrick who answered. My husband asked if someone had been shot. Patrick replied, "Yes, and I'm not through." and hung up.
The killings began at about 6:58am. The next morning at 6am, we carriers (who were still alive) showed up and went back to work. The surviving clerks had been there since 1am. Crime scene cleanup people were still working. I found a dead co-worker's eyeglasses on the floor. We had bloody mail to deliver. Some of our canvas carts were bloodied, and for years afterwards we had to continue to use them. Nice, huh?
The Postmaster General of the United States at that time, Mr. Tisch, came to town and made a big deal about how we would receive anything we needed to carry on. As soon as he left town, management became even colder to us than they had been before.

 

http://www.gondwanapress.com  http://www.ericwilder.com

Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil until, 9–11.  I can hardly recall the events without crying.  The day it happened, I had a dentist’s appointment.  I was apparently in my car, on my way back home, when the actual attack occurred.  When I reached home, my wife Anne greeted me at the front door.

“Something terrible has happened,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she said, beginning to cry.

Anne was the picture of stoicism.  She never cried.  I quizzed her.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know.  Something terrible.”

I turned on the TV to see the local Channel 9 helicopter reporting from near downtown Oklahoma City.  There was smoke coming from one of the buildings.  When the chopper flew to the other side of the building, my heart almost stopped beating.  The chopper pilot exclaimed, “Oh my God!”

The entire front of the building was gone, blown literally away.

“Oh my God!” I said as Anne and I both began to weep.

That was just the beginning.  Video of bloodied citizens began appearing on the screen as the scene began to unravel.  The entire downtown of Oklahoma City became an instant disaster scene.

Later that day, a friend picked me up in his car and drove us downtown.  Friends, I am a Vietnam vet and you can believe me when I tell you that I’ve seen it all.  Well, I thought I had.  I can only tell you that the devastation I saw reminded me of the worst bombed-out Vietnamese cities I had ever seen.

There were blocks and blocks of cranes on the street, the first inkling of the outpouring of solidarity among the locals, and soon the entire nation that had just begun.  It was my first experience with literally hundreds of newspeople, swarming the area like flies.

The days following the attack remain in my memory like fast-set concrete.  I will never forget the images of firemen, search dogs, a doctor amputating a woman’s leg, trapped beneath tons of concrete, with a pocket knife.  The babies in the Murrah Building day care center that didn’t survive.

There isn’t enough time, or room on this blog to describe the horror that occurred in Oklahoma City 12 years ago tomorrow.  Some of you know the horror – the 9–11 victims; hell, the Virginia Tech victims!

The City suffered an immense setback on April 19, 1995.  Education suffered, our economy suffered, out psyches suffered.

Anne, my wife, contracted cancer in 1997 and died in 1998.  Distraught, I drove downtown at midnight during the anniversary of 1998 and sprinkled some of her ashes on the killing field where the Murrah Building had once stood.

I can’t write anymore because I can no longer see the computer screen through my tears.

It's still raining in Oklahoma.  What a difference a year makes!  This time last year we had barely had 3" of rain.  This year, we've already had four times that amount.  Has it helped the drought in Oklahoma?  Yes, but it has done little to raise the underground aquifer level that has dropped 10' in a decade.  Unlike area lakes and streams, aquifers recharge slowly, and ever-increasing population exacerbates the situation.  God bless the Hokies!

http://www.gondwanapress.com http://www.ericwilder.com

http://www.gondwanapress.com

Three wild ducks have taken up residence across the street.  The female is pregnant and will soon lay eggs.  Maybe she already has.  Here is a pic taken today of the ducks and my grandson Braydon.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

This is easy.  Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.  Read it and be prepared to be both revulsed and changed forever.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

I remember reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night in 1964 or 65. A voracious reader open to all the possibilities of life, I was both shocked and gladdened by Vonnegut’s writing style and the depth his prose conveyed. I had already read Ibsen and Hemingway, but soon found that Vonnegut took literature to a higher level. Vonnegut was the master of leading his reader down a path, an always entertaining path, until the reader inevitably exclaimed "Oh shit!" as the master’s words coalesced from a dim premise into a sparkling nugget of golden truth.

Yes, Kurt Vonnegut was a thoughtful person that worried about the consequences of everyday actions. He also worried about what is real and what is perceived, and reading a Vonnegut novel is often like experiencing a waking dream. This week we lost a true master. He will be missed.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwana.com

After thinking about the subject for a day or so, I’ve decided to weigh in on the Imus controversy. Here is my opinion. Freedom of speech is a right we all have as Americans. We should cherish this right. That said, we don’t have the right to blurt out anything that comes to mind. You can’t, for instance, call your wife a dirty c**t without incurring dire consequences. Your wife may love you dearly but such name calling will most certainly result in something very unpleasant, and probably divorce. No sane husband is going to ever make this remark. If he does, I guarantee it’ll never happen more than once.

Yes, we may have the right to say almost anything we want, but rational people know this right bears consequences, often dire. No one knows this self apparent fact better than long-time broadcaster Don Imus. Then why, you ask, did he do it? After thinking about his possible reasons for a day or so, I can come up with only one logical answer: he did it on purpose, knowing full well the impending consequences of his actions. In short, Imus committed employment suicide.

My conclusion begs many more unanswered questions: Why didn’t he simply tender his resignation? What prompted him to choose female African-American basketball players as his target of opportunity? Knowing the consequences of his actions, why did he bother apologizing? The spoken word is powerful. Imus has known this power for years, wielded it like a golden sword. This week, he fell on that sword and I would bet good money that even Don Imus doesn’t really know why he did it.  Eric Wilder

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

I just dredged this short story from the dark bowels of my computer’s hard drive.  I wrote it 18 years ago after reading and seeing video accounts of the San Francisco earthquake that occurred October 17, 1989.  The earthquake registered 6.8 on the Richter Scale and happened during rush hour.  Bridges and freeways literally melted away in the wake of fast-moving traffic, many passengers rushing to see the third game of the World’s Series in Oakland between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants (how unlikely is that?)  63 people ultimately died, 3,500 injured and 12,000 made homeless by the natural disaster.

Looking back, this whole event seems scripted for primetime TV, or even a big screen disaster flick.  How improbable the entire story?  Short stories are a greatly neglected art form.  They must quickly and deftly develop memorable characters and tell an engaging tale that plays on the reader’s psyche for days after reading it.  Like the very best of all fiction, the short story rises or falls because of CONFLICT and how this conflict causes the characters to change, or grow.

Nope, DSOTF is no Pulitzer candidate, but please read it in the context of the traumatic and highly unlikely event that actually occurred.  Eric Wilder

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

DOWNTHROWN SIDE OF THE FAULT

by Eric Wilder 

After hurriedly straightening her desk, Tinley Chase adjusted her short skirt, licked her lipstick, then checked her boss's schedule one last time to make sure he had no more appointments. Finally satisfied she tapped on his door, flashing her sexiest smile when he glanced up from his desk.

"Mike, I'm done. Mind if I leave early?"

The gray-haired man with the boyish face grinned. "Hot date?"

"You might say that. Ted's taking me to the A's game tonight."

"And where's Myra?"

"L.A. all week."

"Cozy, he said, raising an eyebrow. "Take off. I'm going home soon myself."

"Thanks," she said, blowing him a kiss as she grabbed her purse and rushed down the hall to the ladies's room.

Alone at the mirror she brushed her straight black hair, admiring her delicate features while touching up her lipstick. Red lips contrasted perfectly with big green eyes and her Eurasian good-looks captured the best of both continents. After winking at her image in the mirror she rushed to the elevator, fishing for her car keys as her high-heels echoed against the marble floor.

Tinley retrieved her car and raced out of the parking garage, kicking off her shoes and undoing the collar of her starched white blouse. Gunning the black BMW down the narrow side road, she relaxed and shoved a Fleetwood Mac cassette into the tape player. As she listened to the mellow strains of Stevie Nicks, she thought about her impending date with Ted Whitman. They were meeting first at Shaughnessy's in Oakland then going to the game from there. She saw the event as symbolic -- Ted's way of finally legitimizing their relationship.

At the Bay Bridge toll booth, Tinley slowed to a stop and tossed the proper change into the basket, gunning the black Bimmer across the stretch of open water when the light turned green, then taking the Emeryville exit in hopes of making better time along the access road. Lost in thought she continued along the side road at high speed, unmindful of the cloudless sky or the old Datsun parked on the shoulder.

The image of the car with its front wheel removed touched her consciousness suddenly and she spun the steering wheel violently to avoid a collision. Her quick reaction averted a major impact, but she clipped the car's fender, knocking it off the jack and into the bar ditch. Her own car slid backwards into the shallow gully. When it crunched to an abrupt halt, she sat there, arms folded in anger. Almost immediately, someone tapped on her window.

"You all right?" Tinley didn't bother looking up or lowering the window, waiting instead for the man to open the front door. "Are you all right?" he asked again.

"Why the hell were you parked in the middle of the road?"

"I was on the shoulder," he said calmly. "Flat tire."

"You were blocking the road."

"Maybe we should call the cops and see what they say."

Tinley glared at her tall antagonist, bending her neck to see his face through the window. Under different circumstances she might have flirted with the handsome brown-eyed man but now she considered him only as an obstacle in her path. He waited patiently as she removed two business cards and a pen from her purse.

"My name and work number is on the card," she said. "Write yours on the back of one and we'll let our insurance companies settle this."

Putting one of the cards into his shirt pocket, he scribbled something on the other and returned it to her.

"My axle's broken," he said. "Mind giving me a lift to the nearest phone?"

"Call a cab," she said, still angry.

After restarting her engine, Tinley gunned the accelerator. The car refused to budge, its wheels spinning in soft earth. The man watched as she removed her foot from the throttle and slammed her hand against the dashboard in frustration.

Then he said, "I'll push you out of the ditch if you'll give me a ride."

Without answering, Tinley motioned to the rear of the car.

"When I signal, give it a little gas." He bent against the car and pushed. "Now."

Tinley eased down on the throttle. Slowly, the black car crept out of the ditch, not waiting for the stranger to get into the car. Instead, she gunned the engine and attempted to power away, but not before he grabbed the passenger door and jumped in, holding on as she sped away down the access road.

"What's the hurry?"

Tinley whirled in her seat, frowning. "I'm not talking to you."

Nodding, he glanced out the window, smiled and folded his arms as Tinley raced down the road until she reached an up-ramp to the Nimitz Freeway. She floored the throttle, blending, with a surge of power, smoothly into the steady flow of traffic.

"My name's Mark," he said, identifying himself.

Tinley reacted instantly, slamming the brake so violently it sent him crashing against the dash. Almost out of control, she quickly maneuvered the vehicle to a dead stop on the interstate's narrow shoulder as cars sped past, blaring their horns at her.

"I told you I didn't want to talk to you, now get out!" Mark stayed put as she screamed,"Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Forget it," he said. "Take me to the next off-ramp and I'll get out there."

"Get out right now! I mean it."

"At the next exit."

Tinley glared into his stubborn eyes and started the car, plowing back into traffic without looking or lifting her foot from the floorboard. As they continued southward on the lower section of the Nimitz Freeway, the weight of moving vehicles above them produced contrasting motion that surged like an electrical current through the speeding BMW. This, along with waves of reflected light and sound produced by the tunnel-like highway, further confused her anger-distorted perception, leaving her quite unprepared for the event that followed.

Abruptly, and without explanation, the sensation of floating on the lower level of a suspended concrete and steel highway dissolved away, leaving her feeling as if they were moving at high speed on top of a freight train traveling in the opposite direction. Tapping the brake, she allowed a car hanging in her blind spot to accelerate past. As it did, the road buckled in front of them, moving forward in a slow, deadly movement, like the segmented motion of a caterpillar's back.

Reacting to the stress, Tinley's brain produced a surge of adrenaline that caused her to suddenly feel like an unwilling participant in a Fellini nightmare. But it was worse then that. Just ahead, the car that had passed them disappeared through a gaping hole in the highway and giant portions of falling interstate began crashing around them.

Tinley's fingers froze on the wheel. Jamming the brakes against the floor, she closed her eyes and held on as the car spun wildly around, finally sliding backwards into the newly opened precipice. Before plunging to their death, a giant slab of highway crashing against the hood, crushing and pinning the BMW against mangled steel and broken cement, stopped them from doing so. So rapid and violent was the collision, it ripped the front seats loose from their bolts.

Tinley's consciousness disintegrated in the bone-jarring crush and cognizance faded into broken bits of garbled reality as the car hung suspended from the broken highway. She struggled, free-falling through space in a black void. Near panic and unable to scream, she clawed at slime-slick walls. A point of light near the bottom of the pit expanded as she plunged toward it but instead of falling into the pit of hell, she realized she was flying upwards, out of the void and into the blue of the sky.

Struggling to remember where she was, Tinley's right eye opened. Attempting to move, she realized she couldn't and found herself stretched fully along the floor of the car, its steel walls pressed tightly against her. Someone's hand touched her neck and she heard the last hazy word of a broken sentence.

"– are you alive?"

Tinley's body jerked reflexively, but she barely moved, wedged within the crushed vehicle as the hand continued to probe her neck and face.

"Stop it! Quit touching me."

"Sorry," the voice said. "I was trying to see if you were alive."

"Get away from me," she said, trying to wrench free.

"I can't. We're both stuck.

Reacting with a fit of temper, Tinley screamed and twisted violently, trying to loosen herself from the man's grasp and the car's steel embrace. Quickly overcome by her futile efforts, she tearfully realized he had spoken the truth. They were trapped inside the crushed vehicle.

Again the man put his hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. Someone will come for us."

"You bastard," she said, spitting the words. "If it weren't for you, I'd be in Oakland now."

"I'm sorry but the accident wasn't my fault."

Tinley jerked her shoulder, trying to free it from his grasp, cracking her forehead against the crushed roof in the process. Finally, she lay shaking on the floor of the car.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did the road collapse?"

"An earthquake. A big one," he said. "You're probably better off here than in Oakland."

"You bastard!"

He put his hand back on her shoulder. "We're stuck in here so you may as well relax until someone rescues us."

"Get your hands off me," she said, voice low and filled with ire. "You caused this and I hate you."

"I didn't and there's nothing either of us can do about it now anyway."

"I don't care. Quit touching me."

Tinley felt him try to move. In a moment he said, "I'm doing my best but we're crammed in here like sardines."

His comment made Tinley laugh. Waiting until her last chuckle faded into a whimper, he said, "Not very funny, is it?"

"It's ridiculous. Really ridiculous."

"Do you think you broke anything?"

"Just my rear-end," she said.

They laughed again but his next question sobered them both. "Can you move at all?"

"My foot's caught beneath the brake pedal."

"The seat's broken. It moves when I wiggle my legs."

"So?"

"The impact crushed the rear window around the two front bucket seats. If I can work one of them loose, I can crawl out behind it and get help," he said.

"What time is it?"

"Why?"

"I'm supposed to meet someone at five," she said.

Once again, tears came to her eyes. Ripping fabric shredded the silence and rough cloth swabbed her forehead.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to pull away.

"You're bleeding."

Tinley suddenly felt faint. Glancing down at her blouse, she saw the growing red stain, conveying the sickening message that perhaps she'd gone through the windshield.

"I'm bleeding, and not just my head," she said.

"Where?"

"My chest and arms."

"I'm going to put my hand under your blouse," he said.

"The cuts are probably superficial, but we need to find out."

"No --"

Paying no attention to her weak protest, he gently loosened her blouse and ran his hand from her stomach to her neck.

"You're pretty cut-up," he said. "But I don't think it's serious. What about your legs?"

"They're okay. My foot hurts," Tinley answered.

"The nastiest cut is just below your breast. Can you hold the bandage against it until the bleeding stops?"

She nodded and grasped the wadded cloth, touching his hand. "My foot's numb," she said.

"I'll kick off my shoe and try to feel it with my toes."

Mark traced his socked foot down her leg, probing for her trapped appendage. As he strained to the task, he said, "We got off to a bad start back there. Think we can try again?"

"I'm Tinley," she said weakly.

"Mark," he said. "Your foot's bleeding, Tinley. You may have cut a vein. We need to do something. Maybe I can stop the bleeding if I use your blouse to press against your foot."

Mark pulled at her collar until it began to rip. Quickly, he tore away the back of her blouse and she felt the heat of his body against her own bare neck and shoulders. He worked the cloth down between them until he was able to grasp it with his toes. With a nurse's expert touch he pressed his own foot against her wound.

Finally he was still. "Who were you meeting in Oakland?"

"Ted, my boyfriend," she said.

"You're not married?"

"No," she said. "Why did you think that?"

"I don't know. I just thought --"

"Thought what?"

"That you're very young to own such an expensive car."

"You're a chauvinist," she snapped.

"Saying you look young isn't chauvinistic," he said.

"Ted gives me things. He's married. You disapprove?"

"What difference does it make?"

Before she could answer, the car lurched and slipped further off the ledge and the plane of the floor shifted from horizontal to near-vertical. Tinley's weight eased back against the shirtless Mark and for a nervous moment she thought they would drop from the hole in the highway to the ground below.

"I'm scared."

"So am I," he said.

They lay clutched together for what seemed an eternity without talking. Tinley, weakened from loss of blood, found it increasingly harder to move, even a little. Their shifting weight would cause the car to slip and each time it did she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

"When will they come for us?"

"I don't know," he said. "Must have been a giant quake. They'll get here when they can."

Tinley began to cry. "I don't want to die."

"We're not going to die," he said.

Another downward movement of the crushed car punctuated his words. "The car's hanging by a thread. You can feel it and so can I," she said.

Mark changed the subject. "Why do you date a married man?" Tinley hesitated before answering. "He's strong."

Mark massaged her neck. "Is that so important?"

"I don't know," she said, still crying.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. When I was a little girl I promised myself I'd never love a man that couldn't take care of me. Dad stayed with the same company as a clerk for thirty years. He was Japanese. I went to an upper crust school with none of the amenities of my rich classmates, always sensing their racial slurs and innuendos. I swore I'd never love a weak man and I guess the lesson took."

Another rattling pitch rocked the vehicle, edging it closer to a vertical position, their every movement causing the crushed prison to inch closer to the precipice.

"I've almost worked the edge of the seat through the window," Mark said. "If I can push it loose, I can wriggle out and go for help." His words brought a stream of silent tears from Tinley and he said, "What's the matter?"

"You're leaving me to die."

"No," he said. "Just for help."

Tears rolled down her face and Mark put his arms around her, holding her until she dozed into fitful, swaying sleep. When she awoke, Mark was still holding her, massaging her neck. A cool breeze blew through the back window.

"You worked the seat loose," she said.

"Yes."

"Can you get out?"

"I haven't tried. I'm staying with you."

"No. Forget what I said. Go for help."

"I thought about it and I'm staying. Your foot's still bleeding. You could bleed to death if I leave."

"If you don't we'll both die anyway."

"I'm staying," he said.

Tinley shut her eyes, eased her hand down her side and unzipped her skirt. Slowly, she slipped the dress and hose down her legs, grabbed Mark's hand and guided it.

"Make love to me," she said.

Mark drew back his hand. "We are hanging here by a thread."

"Maybe it's better to die making love than live in constant fear of death," she said.

"I won’t do it."

"Why not?"

Because it's okay to die for love, but not from making love."

"Then you have to go now," Tinley said.

"Too late. The car's too close to the edge. If either of us move, I think it will fall. Please take this. I want you to have it."

Mark showed her a single rose, slightly crushed. "I brought it from my Mother’s funeral."

"They buried your mother today?"

"Yes."

"Oh God, Mark, I don't want either of us to die."

"We aren’t. My mother is with us, and your father. I can feel them. There's four of us here and despite your dad's other failings, he gave you a fighting spirit. They won't let us die."

She began crying softly, torn between contradictory emotions. Then, like a tinny voice coming from a cheap radio, a voice spoke from outside the car.

"Hello. Anyone in there?"

They both shouted, "Yes! Please help us."

Someone touched the car and shook it precariously.

"Dammit," he said. His voice melded into the darkness,

leaving them alone again.

Another hour passed before a mechanical metal-ripper tore at the car, causing it to sway like a pendulum. The Bimmer began to slip, minutely at first. Then, with a sudden metallic lurch, it plunged downward, into the abyss and Tinley's muted scream faded as she sank into black incognizance, weak from loss of blood.

. . .

When Tinley regained consciousness, she found herself in the back of an ambulance, a paramedic holding a damp wash cloth against her forehead.

"Where's Mark?"

"If you mean the young man that was with you, he's already at the hospital," the man said. "He asked me to give you this." He slipped a crushed rose into her hand. "He said not to worry. He'd find you soon as they release him.

"Is he hurt badly?"

"We had to cut him loose with a torch."

Tinley closed her eyes and her voice trailed away.  "I prayed we wouldn't fall." Her words brought an instant reaction to the man and she asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"I guess it's no joke to you but the car was only hanging about a foot off the ground," he explained.

Tinley's face flushed. Relaxing against the pillow, she smiled, feeling foolish, but suddenly very wise.

END

Growing up, we depended a lot on patent medicines.  One I remember was called 666.  I know, the name sounds awfully wicked, but people used the medicine despite the name.  I even remember taking a dose or two from my mother when I had a cough.  My Dad says his mother (Grandma Rood) gave it to him in massive quantities every spring for his persistent fever (malaria).  He said it was the only thing that did him any good, but to this day he won’t eat or drink anything bitter.  Here’s a pic I found on the web of a fan used in advertising.  The remedy, as I remember, came in a bottle with a prominent 666 on the label.  Go figure?

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I just looked out the window and saw the unusual sight of large flakes of snow falling on my freshly blooming purple irises.  Last week it was 84 degrees.  Tomorrow the temperature is supposedly dropping to 28 degrees.  What a year in weather we are already having!

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The mind is a powerful though delicate instrument that none of our prize winning scientists have yet mapped, or even begun to understand.  We are all aware that a tune, played perhaps during the correct phase of the moon, can cause the old gray matter to recall a dim memory.  Such is what just happened to me as I listened to George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord on a local golden oldies radio channel.  Seems I’ve told this story before.  Likely I have.  If you’ve heard it already, keep reading because no story worth repeating ever comes out the same twice.

It was summer in Vietnam.  Hell, as a line company grunt, it was always summer in Vietnam.  Monsoon season had ended and my company had gone three days without water.  I could think of nothing else.  For any of you out there that has gone three days without water, you know what I’m talking about.

On a prolonged hump through the jungle, the 110 degree heat seemed just a bit more pronounced.  That evening, we made camp on a hill.  Later, someone yelled that there was a creek at the base of the hill and anyone needing water should bring their canteens.  I grabbed my empty water containers and hurried after the file of soldiers hurrying down the hill.  Along the way, I rushed headlong into an extremely sharp branch of bamboo that poked me directly in the eye.  In my haste for water, I had forgotten my glasses.

That night was hell.  I felt like popping my eyeball out of its socket, it hurt so badly.  Next morning, the choppers picked us up and flew us out of the jungle to a nearby forward fire base.  Once there, I quickly made my way to the medics hootch.

“You have a hell of a tear,” the doctor said, packing my eye with heavy grease and putting a patch over it.  “You’re going to the rear for awhile.”

“You’re a coward-ass, pain faking son-of-a-bitch,” my platoon sergeant yelled at me as he and the rest of the company headed back toward the awaiting choppers.  My throbbing eye told me I wasn’t faking but it didn’t assuage the guilt caused by his voice, and the looks of my fellow ground pounders.

I spent two weeks at the rear fire base of Song Be, playing chess with the company clerk of Headquarters Company.  When the doctor let me go, I returned to my company.  A long month later, a clerk-typist position opened back in Song Be and my buddy, the company clerk, recommended me to fill it.

Everything went well for weeks until, one day, a shooting pain in my eye drove me to my knees.  This time, the doctor greased my eye, patched it and decided to refer me to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon.

Next day, I landed at the airfield with orders in hand and a patch on my eye.  I soon met an airman that told me how to get to the hospital.  “First,” he said, “You should get a massage and a piece of ass at the best whore house in town.  Go right in that door and ask for girl #35.”

I followed his sage advice.  Miss 35 was as beautiful as he had billed her.  At the time, I was every bit of 23, but she seemed much younger than me.  Perhaps she was older than she looked because I felt like a 100.

Anyway, I finally made it to the infamous 3rd Field Hospital.  There was no eye ward, so they assigned me a bed in the hemorrhoid ward (no, I’m not making this up).  I had a tiny radio with a single ear plug.  Some pirate radio station was all I could get and they were playing George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord over and over again.

Next morning, I went for a shower.  There were no shower heads and only small metal bathtubs scattered on the floor’s broken tile.  “First day here?” a soldier asked when he saw my confusion.  “Fill the sitz bath with water hot as you can stand it, doctor it up with one of these bottles of Phisohex, and then soak until the water gets cold.”

Like a moron, I did as he directed.  When he realized that I didn’t have hemorrhoids, he almost busted a gut laughing.

Everyday for nine days I would visit the doctor in the eye ward.  One of the patients had only the whites of his eyes.  Some tropical disease he had contracted on R & R in Australia.  He looked like a creature from a horror movie.  My doc couldn’t find what kept slicing up my eyeball.  He tried everything, even scrapping it with a scalpel.  Finally, in desperation, he got after it with a Q-Tip, finally finding a sliver of bamboo that had worked its way to the back of my eye.

“Are you a line soldier?” he asked me.  “I can give you a pass for ten days so you won’t have to go straight back.”

“Thanks,” I said, “But I have a job in the rear now.”

That night, a band was playing in the rec room on the first floor.  The room was filled with triple and quadruple amputees, every one of whom looked younger than me.  Many were Vietnamese and I wondered about their futures.

Next morning, I took my little radio and checked out of hospital hell.  At least I was walking out the door on my own two feet.  The plug was in my ear and I listened for the last time to the velvet voice of George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord.

Nearly forty years has passed since that day.  I had almost forgotten it until tonight.  Why?  I have no scientific answer, except that the mind is a powerful and delicate instrument that none of us will ever understand.

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