Life Under the Sun: February 2011

C. S. Lewis said “You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it.” I don’t know what circumstances brought Lewis to make that comment, though I could guess, since I know his life story, more or less. Or I could look up the specific facts. But it’s not Lewis’s circumstances that concern me so much as my own.
You see, I don’t have Lewis’s problem. I don’t want—anything—desperately. I am very content with my life the way it is, uncomplicated, uneventful. I have an ordinary American family, a wife, two children, a gas-guzzling minivan, a dog. Well, we did have a dog until it got out of hand, chewing on the shingles of our house, and I made the kids give it away.
We live in a suburb of Minneapolis. I t doesn’t matter specifically which suburb. Nor does it matter that we live here because we feel it’s better for the kids to have only a vague concept of what life in the inner city is like, or that we like to pretend working in the homes of wealthy families has positive effects on me.
When I wake up in the morning, I check to see where I’m supposed to be. Then I call my employee, and tell him where the day’s job is. Often when I call, he’s still sleeping, and I wake him up. But he gets ready quickly and sometimes beats me to the address. He’s single, after all, and lives with a couple other single guys, who make no effort to keep track of each other.
I have a family.
Jeanne makes me eat breakfast and the boys argue about the food, their belongings, or anything else they can think of to argue about. I mediate. Jeanne asks me if I’ll run an errand for her later. I finally get away.
I see Ed parked outside the house in his truck. His head is lying back on the seat. His eyes are closed.
I rap on the driver’s side window.
He opens his eyes slowly. I didn’t startle him a bit.
He rolls down the window.
“They got a five car garage,” he says.
It is actually a three-car garage with a two-car garage attached to it, tucked slightly behind the three-car.
I smile at Ed and nod condescendingly. “Sure,” I say.
“What kind of work do they want done?”
“A lot,” I say. “Get out and I’ll tell you while we get going.”
I’m a full-fledged licensed electrician; Ed is a journeyman. He has a couple years left. He’s easy to work with, quick—both mentally and physically, a hard worker. But he is clumsy. I don’t think he’s every worked a day without drawing blood or at least giving himself a major bruise.

We work hard in the kitchen. The owners haven’t left yet—at least the wife is there; apparently the kids have gone somewhere with their housekeeper or nanny. She watches us as we put in some cans in the ceiling over the table.
Ed nicks his hand with his knife and she gasps. I don’t think it’s so much sympathy for him as shock at the little bubble of blood. She tells him to be sure and clean up before he gets back to work. Again, I don’t think she’s thinking of him, trying to make sure he doesn’t get infected or something. It’s far more likely from the way she speaks that she’s just making sure he doesn’t mess up her house with his blood.
The cans are connected to and controlled by a dimmer switch. She’s not completely happy with the way I’ve placed the cans or the switch. I grit my teeth. We’d worked all this out earlier.
She keeps harping. I try to explain to her that the way she wants to do it won’t illuminate the room as well, but she’s very insistent. Finally I agree to move everything, but she’s not happy until she actually sees me start to fix things the way she wants them.
After that ordeal, she says she has to get a manicure and I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t wait for her to leave. “Simon and Samantha are at the art museum with Joanna,” she announces.
I try to think who Simon, Samantha, and Joanna are.
“My children,” she says. My face must look as blank as I feel. But then I nod and process the information, figuring she means Simon and Samantha are her children. Joanna must be their nanny or some other sort of caretaker, maybe a housekeeper.
“I’m so glad I’m not there with them. They would just—be a nuisance, you know?”
I wonder why she’s telling me this, and I disagree with what she’s saying, though I realize I don’t know her kids. I speculate as to whether she always thinks they are a nuisance, and wonder if she ever spends any time with them. From my experience with others of her type, I rather doubt she’s with her children often.
“There’s just so much,” she says, with a little vague wave of her hand. “I am overwhelmed.” She sighs heavily.
By what? I think. Her life, her children?
“Well, I’m off,” she says, and I wish her well.
Next I install some on top of the cupboard lights—the ambiance kind that just put off this soft glow for effect.
I’m up on a ladder working, when Ed groans. I look down. He’s doubled over, leaning against the counter. I figure he’s hurt himself, cut his hand again or something. Must have really sliced into it this time, from the look of him. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“I feel sick,” he says.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“My stomach. I think I’m going to lose my breakfast.”
I believe him. For all his clumsiness, Ed’s not really a complainer, and I’ve never really known him to get sick on me before. It is true that one day last week he looked a little green around the gills, but he didn’t say anything and I thought he’d probably just gotten to bed too late the night before, partied too hard or something.
But this seems a fair bit worse. I figure he ate something bad.
“I shouldn’t have got that Egg McMuffin,” he says. “It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I understand. I’ve been there myself. But still—“You can’t throw up on these people’s nice kitchen tile, Ed,” I say. “Go to the bathroom.”
After Ed leaves, I get back to work.

This is a beautiful house. It’s not as nice as some, but it’s still pretty fancy—Jacuzzi in the master bath; vaulted ceiling in the entry way; open living, dining, den areas; two fireplaces, one downstairs and one up. Sparkling stainless steel kitchen. Maybe not the nicest people, but a pretty nice place.
I have a fairly nice house. Did some classy wiring in it at least, if I do say so myself. But it doesn’t have any of the things that set apart a house like this one. In other words, you walk into our house and you think it’s all right. You walk into this house and others I’ve worked in, and you say, “Wow.”

A little while after Ed’s episode, he seems fine. He tells me he found some Pepto in the bathroom and drank half the bottle. He almost choked on the stuff when it was going down, but his stomach settled shortly after and he was ready to get back at it again. Good old Ed.

We finish the job around lunchtime. I tell Ed I’ll take him out for lunch. “What about McDonald’s?” I say.
He smiles at the joke but looks a little queasy. “Well, boss, if you want to—but, maybe we should take the rest of the Pepto with us.”
I laugh. Actually a Big Mac does sound pretty good to me, but I wouldn’t do that to Ed.
We go to Subway.
It’s incredibly hot outside. And it’s such a sticky heat, the kind that really makes you feel like you’re melting. After my wife and I first got married, we lived in a little apartment with no air conditioning at all, and we used to shop for groceries when it got really bad on the weekends when we were both at home. We’d stand in the freezer section forever.

We finish our sandwiches pretty quickly and then just sit there in the booth, looking at each other. We’re supposed to be somewhere else for the afternoon, but there’s no exact time set, just after we finish the first job.
“So what’s going on with you, Ed?” I say. “Besides getting sick to your stomach.”
“Not much,” he says though there’s something about the expression on his face that seems to indicate there is something. “Same old, same old, “ he says. “One of the guys in my apartment is getting married. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Yea. Doug, isn’t it? When’s the big day?”
“September 15, I think. I know it’s some time in September.”
“Yea. Well, that’s nice. Have you found somebody to take his place in the apartment, a new renter?”
“Not yet.”
Neither of us says anything for a while. We just kind of look around the restaurant and enjoy the break from work and the time off our feet. I finally stand up to leave.
Ed doesn’t stand. “I’m thinking about moving out of the apartment myself,” he says.
“You are?” I say. “Found a better set up?”
Ed nods. “Maybe,” he says. “I’m thinking about going south—southwest. I’m going to be a cowboy, a rancher.”

I want to laugh, to tell him he’s crazy, to ask if he had a John Wayne marathon last night. You’re definitely a piece of work, I’m thinking. But I don’t say anything at all. Ed’s still talking and I don’t want to interrupt him. I sit back down to listen. I’ve never heard him talk so much before in my life. But it seems like he needs to do it. Anyway, I think this scheme of his could use some explanation.
As he speaks, I feel like I’m in a dream. What he’s telling me is just unreal.
“I read this little booklet,” he begins. “It’s called The Way. It made me realize my life is missing something—that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. That if I stay where I am I won’t make it. And I feel all sick and twisted inside off and on, even nauseous, like this morning.”
“You’re blaming this idea on your Egg McMuffin?” I say.
He frowns briefly but then keeps on going. “You know we work in these fancy houses. These people have so much. I thought for a long time that this was what I wanted for myself. But I’ve seen that this stuff doesn’t make people happy. I don’t even like working in these places any more. I can hardly wait to get home at night.”
You’re just lazy, I think, but I don’t say it. Actually, I know it’s not true. Ed’s a good worker. I’m just trying to distract myself. Part of me knows what he’s talking about but another part of me isn’t about to admit it.
He continues, “A few days ago, someone stopped me at the grocery store and asked me what was wrong. I guess I looked like I wasn’t feeling well and was upset. I know I was but I didn’t think anybody could tell. I figured it was something I ate and it would pass. I mean, it’s happened more than once recently and it seems to be getting worse.”
I hadn’t really noticed anything until today. But, I admit to myself, I’m probably not that observant of my employee’s health and feelings. Something would have to be pretty obvious and probably even interfere with his work for me to notice.
Ed goes on, “I don’t know what made me say what I did, but I told him I was afraid of the future. Don’t really know how that would connect with my stomach problems but that’s what I said—to a complete stranger. He didn’t look surprised. He just nodded. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you just kill yourself? You won’t have to worry about the future then.’”
Ed shakes his head fiercely while he continues. My eyes are wide and I watch him closely as he says, “I’m not kidding. That’s what he said.”
Ed leans forward slightly as he speaks, though I’m not sure he realizes what he’s doing. I lean back against the seat on my side. I guess I feel like he’s cutting in on my space. But he’s just so intent on his words.
Ed says, “I told him that I was afraid of what would happen to me after I died. And he said, ‘If that’s the way it is, what are you doing here? You’ve got to get up and go somewhere where you won’t have this fear. You have to get away from the need to fear. You must escape.’
“I said, ‘I don’t know where to go.’ And he said to me, ‘I’ll tell you where. You’ve got to go southwest. Go, go, go. Don’t look back. Flee from this. When you get to Texas, you’ll find a place.’ Then he gave me this little notebook.”
Ed holds up a spiral notebook. The kind I used as a kid for school, with cardboard front and back covers. College-ruled, the front of it says.
I know I’m looking at Ed like he’s lost his mind. I don’t even try to stop myself. I start to tell him he can’t possibly be thinking seriously of going to Texas.
Ed says, “When he left, he said to me, ‘You better get yourself out of here quickly, pardner. And don’t forget to buy a cowboy hat. You’ll have to keep your gaze on the sun, and the brim of your hat will help you bear it.’ And he was gone.
“At first it seemed like a really crazy idea—going away like that—but I just kept thinking about it. Before too long, I knew it was what I wanted to do—more importantly, what I had to do. I’m going to do it.”
“You are?” I say.
Ed nods. “Yes.”
“And when did you decide this?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about it a long time. But I guess I’ve actually made my decision for sure just now. When I told you. I’m sure glad I did.”
I frown at him, trying to look the part of a disapproving parent or teacher, which is rather what I feel like. “I’m glad you told me too, Ed,” I say. “Maybe I can talk some sense into you.”
“No,” Ed says. He stands. “If you mean to dissuade me, you might as well stop now. I’ve decided to do this.”
I stand as well. It seems odd to hear Ed use a word like dissuade. I find myself thinking intently over everything he just said.
As we walk out of the restaurant, I say, just loud enough for Ed to hear me, “You don’t know anybody there in Texas. You don’t have friends, a place to live, a job. You have no way of knowing for sure that you’ll find what you’re looking for there.”
“What I’m seeking for is better than anything here,” Ed says. “You should read that little booklet I read, The Way.”
“But this man who advised you,” I say as we climb into my truck, “how do you know he knows what he’s talking about? I’m your friend. You’ve known me for years, and I think this idea is crazy. And if you do this, Ed, I’ll think you’re crazy too.”
Ed shrugs. “Maybe. But it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “I’ll tell you tomorrow what day I plan to leave. Maybe you’ll decide to go with me.”
“Somebody ought to keep an eye on you,” I say, though of course I would never go with him.
“I’m going to read this notebook that man gave me. There’s a lot written in it,” Ed says. “Then I can tell you more tomorrow.”

On the job site that afternoon, just around 2:00 or 2:30pm, Ed complains about his stomach’s bothering him again.
I’m almost suspicious that this is some sort of ploy, but I say to him, “I’m thinking you might have an ulcer, Ed. Probably because you’ve been worrying too much lately. Or else this is some sort of stomach bug.” I want to add that it could just be a lie, but he really does look quite pale. Two times in one day. Really not that far apart even. Whatever it was must be getting worse.
“Maybe you should just go home,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s all right.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll let you know what my plans are then.”
I nod at him dubiously.

That night I tell my wife about Ed. She listens carefully. I realize it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to us in a long time. And actually, it’s not even happening to us. It’s happening to Ed.
“He wants to be a cowboy? In Texas?” she repeats me. She’s incredulous. “Does he think that the minute he walks across the border into the state, they’ll hand over the reins of a horse and point him to a herd of cows, or what? Are you sure he’s not taking drugs?”
“He downed almost a whole bottle of Pepto today,” I volunteer.
She doesn’t seem to be listening to me. She’s walking around the kitchen, shaking her head. I think she’s getting things ready for dinner, though she’s opened the fridge three times and not pulled anything out of it. I must be distracting her rather badly with my story.
She pushes a loaf of bread machine bread back and forth and finally at me. It’s on top of a cutting board. She hands me an electric knife. I know what I’m supposed to do.
She pulls out of the fridge a Tupperware bowl full of cut up fruit. She must have cut it up some time earlier. Then she brings over the sugar canister and adds a couple spoonfuls of sugar to the bowl. Sandwiches and fruit salad. A nice, light dinner. I’m looking forward to it, even though I had sandwiches for lunch as well. I like sandwiches, and besides it’s late August and far too hot and muggy to cook anything. We have an air conditioner unit in our bedroom and one in the boys’ bedroom. They have to cool down the whole house, but mostly they just keep us comfortable while we’re sleeping. Whenever you try to cook anything, the kitchen’s an inferno that those little air conditioners don’t begin to make a dent in. Next year we’ll get central air—maybe. In the winter, I always forget about it. It’s just not an immediate need then.
“You’ve got to talk him out of it,” she says, as she puts the bowl of fruit salad on the table. My mind has wandered, so it takes a few seconds before I remember we’re still talking about Ed.
“Sure,” I say, though I have no idea how I’m supposed to “talk him out of it.” In fact, seems to me I’ve already tried and failed. And now I’m not so sure that I even want to discourage him. I’m starting to think that as crazy as he seems, he might be doing the right thing after all. Kind of like Don Quixote, having a cause even if it doesn’t exist. I guess that’s one way to give your life meaning for the moment. Perhaps make-believe meaning is better than no meaning at all.
His comment about the people who live in the houses we work in really hit home with me. He’s right. They sure wouldn’t indicate that way is the way to happiness.

My wife announces that supper is ready, and I go to look for the boys. I hear them laughing and hollering in their room upstairs and think I should go up and check on them, but they come right away when I call them from the bottom of the stairs.
During the meal, Derek and Tim are unusually quiet. They eat their supper very quickly and then want to get back to what they were doing. They slide out of their chairs almost at the same time.
I call them back before they hit the stairs.
“Yea, Dad?” Derek says, Tim just behind him and still inching away. They’re eleven and nine, respectively. And obviously up to something.
“Wait a minute, Tim,” I say. “Don’t take off just yet.”
They wait for me to continue, their eyes wary.
“Visit with your mom and me for a bit,” I say.
Derek rolls his eyes. “Dad, we’re busy,” he says.
“So you have time to scarf down your food like an animal but that’s it. No time to be civil to your parents. What are you two up to?”
They aren’t looking at me. They obviously tuned me out while I was talking. But I thought they heard my question. They look at each other and away. Still, neither one really looks at me.
“All right. One of you needs to talk to me.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Each decides the other should do the talking apparently, since they both start to leave again.
“Boys!” I say.
Derek turns back. “Dad, you don’t want to know.”
I follow them up the stairs. Of course, they can hear me behind them, and they look back nervously. Tim even says, “Where are you going, Dad?”
I say, “With you.”
In their room, which I more or less shove my way into as Derek tries to close the door in my face, I realize why they have been so intent on keeping me away. The place is utter chaos. Not just toys and clothes everywhere, but the book shelf has fallen over. Books are all over the floor. And worst of all—there is water on everything: large damp spots on the bed and the carpet, books and clothes obviously wet, water running down the walls.
I turn to look at the boys. “All right—“ I say. I start to ask them again what they’ve been up but then decide it’s not necessary. It’s really quite obvious what’s happened. A couple weeks ago, my father gave them huge machine gun water guns. They’d pump water at you from at least twenty feet. The boys must have had a water fight inside, in their room.
I wonder what they thought they’d do. Had they planned to get back up here and clean it up before one of us saw it? Or were they thinking they’d play some more?
I shake my head. “What’s with you guys? I mean, I know you must have realized that you’d trash the place—playing with those guns in here. It’s obvious that’s what you did.”
Derek looks away. Tim hangs his head.
“I don’t know that you guys can clean this up. And I’m sure you’ve damaged some of your things.” I keep shaking my head, trying to remain calm. I feel myself growing more and more angry as I speak and sense that I may soon say something I will really regret. Maybe I have already.
“This was really stupid, guys,” I say. “Really stupid.”
Derek looks at me now. His eyes are dark and glassy. I think he looks belligerent. No repentance here, I think.
“Dad, all you do is yell at us,” Derek says. “You’re no fun.”
That’s not what I’d expected him to say. I start to protest, to vindicate myself, but he keeps speaking, “You never do anything with us any more. It’s like we’re just a-a nuisance.”
What is he saying? A nuisance. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Derek use that work before. He thinks I think he’s a nuisance. Like snobby Mrs. Mallory. That’s what she said about her children. I would never say such a thing. But was it possible I thought it? Surely not.
“Do you really think so, Derek?” I finally say.
He nods. “When was the last time you did anything with us, Dad?”
“I’m here for supper almost every night,” I say. But afterward I usually crash in front of the TV and you’d be hard put to move me. I might work on some little project of my own once and a while, but most of the time it’s the TV, I have to admit it. If the boys want to do something, like toss a ball or play a game, even if they just talk to me for a long time or want to watch their show or their video when I’m watching something I’m interested in, it’s true I often say, “I had a long day at work and I’m tired; I just want to watch this TV show.” Nothing like an eleven-year-old to say it like it is.
I’m no better than Mrs. Mallory. I may not be sending my kids off with somebody else all the time, to get them out of my way and justify myself because they’re doing something educational. But I’m still not really there for them. I’m here but I’m not here with them.
I wonder if Jeanne feels the same way about me. Surely I’ve done better with her. I tell her about my day when she’s getting supper ready, if I get home in time. But then I wonder guiltily when the last time was that I asked her about her day. I can’t remember.
“Clean this up, boys,” I say, and leave their room. Jeanne is in the hallway.
I give her a questioning look. I’m not sure if I’m asking her if she heard or if she agrees with what she heard. She nods and I know it’s a yes to both unasked questions. And I sigh. I walk past her to our room.
In our bedroom, I lie down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I try to fight against this dark, empty feeling that seems to be rising in me. I feel a little sick to my stomach.
Jeanne comes in and sits down on the bed beside me. I close my eyes and think about pretending to be asleep. But she takes my hand and squeezes it. She knows I’m faking.
It’s obvious she wants to talk. But I don’t want to. I want to go downstairs and turn the TV on and collapse in front of it. That’s exactly what I want to do.
“You’ve changed,” Jeanne says. “I’m not sure when it happened. A year, two years. Now it seems like all you do is work and when you come home you’re so tired. You don’t have anything left for us.”
I don’t feel like I work that hard. Sure, I’m tired in the evenings, but she is too. That’s why people sleep at night, for goodness’ sake. We all need rest after a long day. We can only do so much.
“I’m here for supper almost every night,” I say. “I help you get it ready!”
“About four or five nights a week, yes,” she says. “But you work all day every day. Often even Saturdays and Sundays. It’s like you’re trying to stay away from us.”
I open my eyes and look at her. I speak rather slowly, painfully. “I’m sorry, Jeanne, I probably do need to spend more time with my family—doing things with you all, listening to you. But I think you’ve got me wrong on this. I don’t really care about work that much. I’m not the workaholic you’re describing. I put in a fair number of hours, sure. I’d like us to be able to get ahead. I think you want that too. But also, it’s just something to do.” I shrug my shoulders slightly.
Jeanne shakes her head. “Something to do?”
I nod.
“What are you saying? Do I bore you? Do our sons bore you? Being with us isn’t ‘something to do’?”
“No, it’s not that—“
“What are you looking for, anyway? What does it take to make you feel occupied?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I want to accomplish something, I guess. But I don’t know what. I don’t even know if that’s what I want, for sure. Just something to do.”
“Well, mop the floors then,” she says. “There’s something to do that doesn’t seem purposeful. You have to do it again and again.” And she walks out of the room. But she pokes her head back in before she leaves me to myself. “Go to Texas with Ed. He may be crazy but at least he’s alive. At least he cares about something.”
I don’t feel good. I don’t want to think any more. I just want to shut my mind off somehow.
I close my eyes and try to sleep but I’m just not sleepy.
Finally, I get up and go downstairs. I feel like a burglar, sneaking around in my own house, hoping no one sees me. I can hear the boys still in their room, talking. I wonder if they’re actually trying to clean. I wait and try to make out what they’re saying.
“Dad loves us,” Tim says.
“Yea, I guess,” says Derek. “But I don’t think he cares about us that much.”
I swallow hard and continue downstairs.
Jeanne is in the kitchen, making a racket. Is she deliberately knocking together pots and pans as she takes them out of the dishwasher?
I creep past the kitchen. I really don’t want to talk to her.
I turn on the light in the family room and settle into an old arm chair. I slump down into it, but then get up and close the door.
I pick up the remote on the coffee table and turn on the TV.

On our lunch break the next day, Ed seems quite chipper. He has brought sandwiches for us both and we eat them at a park just down the road from the house where we are working.
“So why are you so happy today?” I ask. “You must be feeling better than you were.”
“I just can’t wait to go,” he says.
I raise one eyebrow. It’s something I’ve been able to do for as long as I can remember, though I suppose if I couldn’t, I might not have as many wrinkles around the eyes. “Still thinking about Texas?” I say.
“I’m not just thinking about it,” he says. “I’m going.”
“If it were everything you say it is, I’d go to,” I tell him. “But how can you know?”
“This notebook was written by someone who knows what he’s talking about,” he says. “You should read it. You’d see for yourself.”
“The guy you met at the grocery store? He’s the one who gave it to you, isn’t he? ” I ask.
“No, he’s not the one who wrote it.”
I wonder who did write it and how he knows it wasn’t the man from the grocery store. But I don’t feel like getting into an argument. “Well, what does it say?” I ask.
He looks away from me and gestures with his hands as he speaks. I can tell he’s trying to express the magnitude of what he feels he’s saying. His eyes are bright and he pauses from time to time as though he’s searching for just the right word. “There are a huge number of ranches all in this one area. This place is like a—paradise on earth. I think the sun shines bright there most always. And the neighbors get along well. These are all different kinds of people. Some had a really hard time getting there. But since they’ve made it, it doesn’t matter. And it’s the owner of the area who makes it what it is. He is really something else. I can hardly wait to meet him.”
“Sounds great, Ed. But how can it really be so good?” I ask. “There has to be a catch. I mean—what does it cost to get one of these ranches, or do you just plan to work on one? Maybe eventually be able to afford to buy one?”
“No, they’re being given away by this guy—by the owner. Really. First come, first serve.”
I frown. I can’t help but keep thinking, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
“You probably want to leave right away then,” I say simply.
Ed wads his napkin up into a ball. He’s long-since finished his sandwich. I get up and follow him as he takes the napkin to the trash can. “I’d like to leave today. I’m afraid with this trouble I’ve had with my stomach lately though—I’m not as up for traveling as I’d like to be.”
“But you’re still planning to go? Just not actually today?”
“As soon as it’s all right with you,” Ed says.
I don’t feel right about holding him back. In fact, part of me wants to go with him. “I’d better look at my schedule,” I say. “I’ll give you a call tonight.”
All that afternoon and evening I think about what he’s told me. Jeanne asks me what Ed decided and I tell her he’s waiting for me to give him a call. She tells me she thinks I should make him wait for at least two weeks, until I find someone to fill in for him, at least. She also says she thinks he might change his mind by then.
But I don’t think he’ll change his mind and I just don’t want to do that to him—to make him wait. He seems so eager. Still, to tell him he can leave today? It’ll take so much longer to do my work alone. And there’s no chance of getting help for tomorrow on such short notice. There may not be any chance of getting help for quite a while. There aren’t that many journeyman electricians around, not to mention the fact that of course I’d rather not work with just anybody.
I dial Ed’s home phone number at 8p.m. “All right,” I say after I greet him, “Take off whenever you want to. I don’t have any projects coming up too much bigger than the usual.”
“Are you going to be able to handle the work all right?” he asks.
I want to say there’s no way I’ll get it done nearly as fast as I would like. But then I think I may be able to find someone else to help me after all, if I don’t let myself be too picky. I wonder if I could even put up with an assistant who hasn’t really had training. Somebody really teachable. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it might make it easier to find someone. Well, I think, I’ll put an ad of some kind in the paper right away and see if anybody turns up. “Sure, I’ll be okay,” I say.
“Thanks a lot!” he says. “I’ll keep in touch.”
“Good,” I say. “So when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, I think.”
I sigh. I had thought it would be soon, even possibly tonight, but to actually hear him say it—well he had just said, “I think.” Maybe it wouldn’t be tomorrow, then.
“If you don’t leave, will you show up for work?” I ask, hopefully.
There is silence for a moment.
I wonder if maybe he just doesn’t want to work with me any more.
“Yes, if I don’t leave, I’ll work,” he says. “Why don’t you go ahead and give me a call in the morning?” He takes a deep breath. “You know, I’m really going to miss working with you. I’m just going to miss you, too. But I want to go so badly, you know? I mean, when I think about what’s in store for me there—“
“Sure,” I cut him off. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow. Just tell me what your plans are.”

In the morning I call Ed and tell him where we’re to work for the day. But I know, even before he says anything, that he’s made up his mind. “Send us a postcard,” I tell him after he makes his announcement. His brother is going with him. I didn’t know he had a younger brother. I did know he had an older one.
The younger brother has just finished college and is still living with the folks but is ready for a change of pace. And apparently he eagerly listened to Ed’s promise of this wonderful new existence in Texas.
Ed had called his folks to tell them his plans and got his brother on the line and the next thing he knew, he had a companion.
Michael and Ed’s folks live a few hours away from Ed, in Iowa. So Michael is on his way to Ed’s and according to Ed should be there any minute. As soon as Michael arrives, they’re going to take off. They’re driving Ed’s truck.
I wish them the best.

Jeanne gets the postcards first. She shows one to me when I get home from work. I’m totally exhausted. I haven’t had anyone call on my ad, and so I‘ve been working alone.
The postcard has a picture of the state of Texas on it, shaped like the state on a map, a pale yellow with black dots and the names of major cities by them, with a photograph imposed over part of the state outline. The photograph is of a ramshackle shack and black lettering at the top of the postcard reads, “Two more years and I’ll have it paid off!” It’s from Ed.
It’s been about four days since he left us. I wondered when I’d hear from him but I didn’t think it would be this soon. I did have a pretty good idea he’d send me some information about himself eventually.
He’d have had to have sent this the day he left, maybe the day after. He’s probably arrived by now.
I read the postcard the minute Jeanne hands it to me. There’s no date on it, just Ed’s scrawled words.

Howdy,
Hope you’re doing well. Had some trouble. My stomach was giving me fits early today so Mike sped to get to a stopping point. The car overheated and now there’s something wrong with it. We’re stuck in a Podunk town somewhere. Don’t remember the name of it. Just know we’re in Missouri. For some reason, nobody will help us when they find out where we’re going. Mike just took off. I don’t know where he is.
Ed

“Poor old Ed,” I say, when I finish reading. I hand the card back to Jeanne. She’ll probably put it on the refrigerator or something.
“There’s another one,” she says. “They came together. He must have sent them both to us on the same day. It would have been cheaper to have just written a letter.”
She hands me a card with a picture of wild blue bonnets on it and the word Texas written in fancy lettering. It really is a pretty picture. Those are pretty flowers.
I study the picture on the front of this postcard a little longer than I did the last, before I read what Ed wrote. He hasn’t dated this one either. I wonder if he wrote this one a bit later on the same day, when he had more news. Then it would make sense to have done it this way, rather than writing one longer letter.

Howdy!
Good news. Finally found someone to fix the car. I asked him why no one else would help when they found out what I was up to. He said “You shouldn’t have come this way. We’re not on the way to where you’re going and people here don’t want to go there. You must have been driving too fast and got off track.”
Told him I thought it was too easy to get off the main road, to miss the way. The signs are confusing. He said it was that way on purpose so people who really didn’t want to go wouldn’t get there. The sign maker did it, this guy said. And guess what? He told me the guy who made the sign is the guy who owns the ranches!
Ed

The next day, I read an e-mail from Ed. Apparently he’d sent it to me several days ago, the day after Ed left, but I don’t check my e-mail often. We don’t have many people who contact us that way, mostly just salespeople. In the e-mail, Ed tells me the rest of the story—everything that happened to him since I heard from him last. I read with great interest.
The message begins, without a greeting:

Day two of my trip, and I’m on my own. Mike’s left me for good. The car trouble was too much for him, I guess. It was hard to find someone to help us and people did give us a hard time. Mike called me from home. Hitchhiked back. Guess he and his buds think I’m an idiot now. He said they make fun of me a lot. Interesting how quickly the tide can change.
Car’s working pretty well now. Just stopped at a truck stop. Met a man who lives in a nearby town. We ran into each other in the aisle in front of the Pepto. I’m still having stomach problems. I really did actually run into him. We were both going down the aisle at the same time and I was looking at the products, not really at him. I just knew there was this other person in the aisle and then, boom, I ran into him. He introduced himself and I told him who I was. He’d heard of me, he said. I didn’t realize I was famous. But I guess it’s not everybody who makes a road trip from Minnesota to Texas, like the one I’m making. And I imagine those folks in that Missouri town might have talked about me. Anyway, this fella asked me if I had a job and a family and why I seemed unhappy. I told him I was hoping to go to a place where I would be happy and where I hoped I might be well—not have these upset stomachs. Sounds like most of the people there are in good health and they’re happy. The air, exercise, food, and health care there are good. I said I just really want to get there.
He told me he thought that made sense but he didn’t think that going to Texas was going to help me the way I thought it would. He kind of sounded like you, actually. He said the road I’m traveling on is bad, rough—construction at several points on the way—and bad weather is expected soon in the direction I’m heading. He said other people have gone the way I’m going and found it really difficult.
Funny thing, too. He asked me when I first started having this stomach trouble, and I told him it was shortly after I finished reading that little booklet I told you about, The Way. He said he’d heard of that happening to other people too. Feeling sick after they read something that made them feel they needed more in their life. Thinks it’s psychosomatic or something like that, he said.
“I have a better idea for you,” he told me. “See a doctor. I know just the one.” And he gave me directions to this doctor’s office just a mile away. Said this guy’s also a psychiatrist. And he said there were nice houses for cheap rent in this town and this town was a nicer place than the place I was headed. He thought I should just take a house in this town instead of going on.
I decided to at least visit the doctor to see if he might be able to help me but I wondered how I could be as happy at this place as at a ranch. On the way to the doctor’s, about a quarter mile from the truck stop, my car started smoking and the arrow was close to the H again. Again, it was overheating. And I felt so sick. The Pepto I’d taken wasn’t helping a bit. I pulled off to the side of the road. And guess who stopped and asked me if I needed help?
You’ll never believe it. It was the guy from the grocery store in Minneapolis. He told me he was going to Texas himself and he asked me if I’d lost my way. I told him about the man who’d directed me this way to this doctor who could help me. “These people can’t help you,” my friend told me. “That doctor isn’t really even a doctor or a psychiatrist. He doesn’t have any kind of certification. And he’s struggled with stomach ailments of his own for quite some time—an ulcer he’s not willing to have treated. The way I told you to go is the only way to go. You will find what you are seeking only if you go the right way. Toward the sun.”
I felt terrible. I had made such a big, stupid mistake. All I wanted to do was go back where I had gotten off course and stay on the right road from there on out. Don’t know what happened to my friend. I took off so quickly, thanking him and bidding him goodbye.
Made it across the border of Kansas. They have a great state billboard with an open door on it. Light is streaming through the door and you can see a field of sunflowers, the Kansas state flower, on the other side.
I’m at the welcome center, tourist center now, typing up a storm, but I’d better go. I’ll contact you again soon.
Ed

I enjoy Ed’s account of his adventures immensely and I feel bad for him in losing his brother’s companionship. It kind of seems to me that he didn’t do such a terrible thing in listening to the guy at the truck stop, but maybe it really was a bad move. Odd that the doctor person not really even be a doctor. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of game they’re trying to pull. But I can’t help but think that Ed’s going to have himself a similar mess when he gets where he’s going. There’s just no way this place can be as great as he thinks it’s going to be. Why is it so hard to get to and why are some people so against going there?
And then I wonder if Ed should have been so quick to trust this man from the grocery store. How did he know the guy Ed met in the aisle at the convenience store wasn’t who he said he was?

Jeanne comes in to the bedroom, where I’m on the computer. “It’s time for supper,” she says.
I’ll have to respond to Ed’s letter later.

We have a fairly quiet family meal. The boys look tired. Both of them start school tomorrow. They played hard today, trying to really make it count, since this is the last day of their summer vacation. I know they’re not that excited about going back to school.
I have tried to be more involved in their lives the past few days. A couple nights ago we played a board game as a family. But it’s such an effort to do things like that. I’m just too tired to even talk to anybody much during the evenings. I’m just not that much of a talker.
I do like to read, though I don’t read nearly so much now as I used to. Even that takes too much effort. I just fell into this habit of watching TV. I don’t know exactly how it happened.
I watch all different kinds of shows, just about anything, really. Sports, sitcoms, PBS specials. Some of those BBC versions of classic works are really pretty good. Problem is when they show them on PBS, they’re almost always to be continued and you have to wait until the next week and maybe also until the week after that to finish them.

After dinner, Jeanne asks me if I’m going to the family room right away. “Are you up to going to Wal-Mart with me?” she asks next. “I want to go to the super store to pick up a couple things for the boys that I still need to purchase.”
I really don’t want to, but after the incident not long ago, I feel like I probably should go with her.
Of course, that means it’s a family outing, since we can’t leave the boys home alone.
The boys seem even less excited about going shopping than I am. They really are tired.
“It won’t be long,” Jeanne said. I can tell she’s a bit put out with all of us.

At the store, Jeanne heads right to the school supplies aisle. She talks to me as she walks, ticking off on her fingers, “Derek needs another notebook, and I still haven’t bought Kleenex or glue. I also want to check the clothes and see if we can find a couple tops for Tim and maybe a new pair of pants or jeans for Derek. I don’t want to have to do laundry every other day and they’ve outgrown or worn out some of their things from last year. Let’s see, what else?”
She purses her lips, and I think she looks rather cute. But what she’s saying is exhausting me. I can just picture us walking all over this store looking for stuff. We’ll be here all night.
“There are a few grocery items I need too,” she says. “I have a list in my purse.”
She starts rummaging in her purse.
“Maybe I could go get those things,” I say, “while you and the boys get the school supplies and look at the clothes.”
“Socks!” she says abruptly. “Both of them need new socks and probably underwear.”
“Ah, Mom,” Derek says.
She just frowns at him.
I have the feeling not only are we going to be worn out but we’re also going to be broke by the time we finally get out of this place. “Should I go look for the items on the grocery list?” I ask, trying to be patient.
“I don’t know,” Jeanne says. “I wanted to compare prices—“
“Well, I can do that,” I say.
“—And I kind of thought this was going to be a family outing,” Jeanne says. “I thought we’d all stay together.”
I sigh. How can I argue with that?

Purchasing school supplies doesn’t take too long, though Derek and Jeanne get into a little argument about the notebooks. Derek wants one with a picture of a singer he likes on the cover. Jeanne wants him to get a plain notebook. She’s not impressed with the rock star’s black leather outfit and multi-colored hair. I start to intervene, but Derek relents. “Let’s just go look at clothes,” he says abruptly. “Let’s get it over with.”
Both Jeanne and I frown at him. Something about his response just doesn’t seem right, though we’re both glad he’s not still insisting on the notebook.
In the boys’ clothing department, Tim is the one who causes trouble. He, for some reason, just doesn’t want any new clothes. Jeanne coaxes and cajoles him, tells him how nice he’ll look in a new shirt, and he just shakes his head stubbornly. He really has only two shirts he ever wants to wear, and usually he wants to wear one for days on end and then the other for several days in a row. Furthermore, he’s quite happy with that state of things.
Jeanne just ends up buying clothes for the boys without asking them what they think and despite their protests. Derek doesn’t really mind the pair of pants Jeanne picks out for him, as far as I can tell, but he does whine that all his clothes come from Wal-Mart. I take his comments at face value, and calmly tell him I know he has clothes from Target and from JCPenney. Jeanne had just purchased some items for him from those stores last week. I remember her telling me about it. But Derek just scowls and Jeanne doesn’t look too happy with me either.
All of us, thankfully, are pretty quiet while we pick up some grocery items. I should say, Jeanne picks up some grocery items. The rest of us follow her around. I do make some suggestions but she doesn’t seem interested and I stop. The boys do ask for chips, cookies, ice cream. Jeanne ignores them as well. They turn to me but I just shake my head and say, “It’s up to your mother.” I just don’t want to deal with them. When they realize neither of us is paying much attention to them, they mercifully stop trying to get our attention. I know it doesn’t always work that way but this time it did, and so, we finish shopping, stand in line to check out, and I hand over my credit card.

The minute we get home, we all head separate directions. I do help Jeanne put away the groceries, but then I sneak off to the family room to watch TV. The boys are watching a video. I start to explode at them, but then I decide I’ll just join them for a while. Probably their little video isn’t too long. As it turns out, it’s a cartoon movie and I can’t seem to get into it. Maybe if the main character wasn’t a mouse. But also, part of my problem is that I can’t help but resent that they’re keeping me from watching my shows—the sitcoms I usually watch at this time on this night of the week. I try to keep my frustration under control.
I cross my legs one way and then the other. I keep shifting in my chair and looking about the room, away from the TV and then back at it.
Tim glances at me. “Do you like this story, Dad?” he asks.
I smile weakly at him. “Sure, Tim, sure. Cute little mouse,” I say.
Tim doesn’t look like he quite believes me. I don’t blame him.
Just when I think I can’t take it any longer, Jeanne calls my name, “Ed’s on the phone for you,” she says.
Ed? I can hardly believe it. Ed’s not much for phone calls. I wonder if he needs my help. I hurry to the kitchen and Jeanne hands me the phone there. She watches me curiously as I say “Hello.”
“I know it’s late,” Ed says. “I won’t talk long, but I just wanted to tell you, I’m in Texas. I love it here.”
“I just read your e-mail today,” I say. “So you finally made it to Texas. Sounds like you had some hard times along the way.”
“Yea, I sure did! You’ve hardly heard any of it! What was the last thing I told you about?”
“That you were at the tourist center in Kansas. That’s where you wrote me. Before that you took a fella’s advice to see this doctor for your stomach trouble and then you met that first guy you talked to here and he told you you were headed the wrong direction if you really wanted help.”
“Yes,” Ed says. He sighs. “It’s so easy to make the wrong choices. I remember writing all that to you at the tourist center. That was a nice place. But the Texas tourist center was fascinating. I stopped at it when I reached Texas.”
“What’s so interesting about it?” I ask. It just seems like everything about Texas fascinates him. He sounds really excited.
Ed talks a blue streak. “There’s a big picture in the lobby, a painting of some cowboy surveying the horizon,” he says. “The frame is a pretty gold color. The cowboy has in his hand this little black leather book or hand-held satchel type of thing, and you can see a city in the distance behind him, but it doesn’t look too appealing and seems pretty far off. I stared at it for a long time, until this janitor came by. He was sweeping the floor, and I guess he didn’t see me and he swept a cloud of dust into my face. I coughed and coughed and he went and got me some water. Then he started mopping the place up and asked me if I could go into the other room. Here there were several shelves with flyers about touristy things to go see. And they had a few maps on display too.
“A young couple with two small children were talking to a lady at the desk. One of the kids was running around the place, hollering for the other to join him. The other kid just stood by her mom and watched her brother like he was crazy. Then the dad gave the boy a piece of candy to keep him quiet and he devoured it and went back to raising a ruckus.
“A gal at a counter kept complaining she was cold and turning down the air conditioner. But it didn’t get any warmer. I stood in a corner looking at a map and I saw the lady at the desk go over and turn the air conditioner back up when the girl wasn’t looking. And the girl turned it back down again. Odd, but she didn’t say anything to the lady, ask her if she was messing with the controls or anything. Maybe the girl knew she wasn’t supposed to change it and the lady kept setting it back to show her. But neither said anything to the other. They just kept it up. The girl was really flustered and the lady as calm as you please. I’m sure the girl’s the one who’ll give it up.
“I asked the girl at the counter if she’d heard of this ranch I’ve been sent to. I kind of knew where it was—way down south on the westernmost side of the bottom of the state—but I didn’t know exactly where to go. She asked me for my name and then she handed me a magnet with a picture of a sheriff on it, complete with badge and gun. She pushed it away from her a bit fearfully and looked at me as though she was slightly afraid of me. ‘There’s an address and a phone number on this,’ she said. ‘I think it might be for the place you’re talking about.’ Both she and the lady looked at me funny as I left. The girl had looked at me like she thought I was some kind of criminal getting ready to hold her hostage. And I thought then that if they tried to stop me from going on, I might have to fight them off, I might give them a reason to be afraid. Though I don’t know why they would stop me.
“I gave myself a spit bath in the bathroom and changed my shirt. My air conditioner was shot, did I tell you? Oh, also, when I went outside to make a call on this pay phone, I had to wait for the guy in front of me. He was such a sad looking man, staring at the ground. He’d parked his car close to the phone, a little low-riding thing that looked to me kind of like a cage. When he got off the phone, I asked him if he was all right, and he said, ‘No, I’ve missed out on what I wanted most in life. It’s all my fault. I gave up.’
“I said to him, ‘Well, surely you can go after it now that you know.’
“’No,’ he said.
“’Is it too late?’ I asked.
“’No,’ he said, ‘I just can’t.’
“Then when I started to dial the number on the card, after the man got in his car and took off, I saw lightning off in the distance and thought I should make the call short. And it was pretty late. But then the sky suddenly seemed so bright. Someone came running toward me, and I could hardly see him, because it seemed so bright. ‘He’s calling me. I’m so frightened. I know he’ll be unhappy with me,’ this young man said.
“’Who are you talking about?’ I called after him as he disappeared into the building.
“I didn’t see the young man come back out of the building. I decided not to stand out there and make the phone call after all. I guess I was worried about the weather. Anyway, I got back in my car and started looking for a place to spend the night. ”
“Wow. That’s weird,” I say, when Ed finally stops speaking.
“All those things mean something,” Ed says. “Do you want me to explain it to you?”
I shake my head. Ed’s losing it, I think.
“Nay, “ I say. “I want you to tell me what’s going on with you now, bud. You say you made it. You’ve got yourself a ranch? Is it everything you hoped it would be?” I say.
“Yes and more than,” says Ed. “But I don’t have a lot of time to talk now. I’ll call you again later, okay? I’m so sorry! I’m borrowing someone’s phone and they need to make a phone call. I said I’d only take ten minutes and I’ve already used up my time.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling rather confused.
“It was great talking to you,” he says.
And he hangs up.

While we get ready for bed, Jeanne asks me what Ed’s call was about, how he’s doing, and what he had to say. I just shake my head. “He’s made it to the place in Texas, but I think he’s losing it.”
She laughs. “Too much sun,” she says.
“Yea,” I say. “Too much sun.”

The next day I get a call from Ed’s brother Michael. He identifies himself, tells me to call him Mike, and then asks me if I’ve heard from Ed. I tell him Ed has contacted me through postcard, e-mail, and the phone.
“Wow,” Mike says. “I know he thinks a lot of you. He wanted you to go with him, you know, not me. I don’t think he thinks so much of me.”
I don’t know if Mike means for me to comfort him, to tell him what he is saying isn’t true, that his brother does indeed think a lot of him, or what. I don’t say anything.
After a short pause, Mike continues speaking.
“I hate to say it about my brother and all, but I think he’s crazy. I mean, this idea didn’t sound so out there at first, if this place is everything he says it is and all, but—nobody else seems to know about, or what they know doesn’t agree with Ed’s thinking. Those people in that town where we stopped to get our car fixed—they didn’t want anything to do with Ed the minute he mentioned what he was doing, where he thought he was going—to these ranches, you know, with this guy going to give him a free ranch and all. I finally wised up myself and—“
For some reason he makes me impatient. I decide while he’s talking that I’m going to interrupt him. “So you abandoned him,” I say.
Mike doesn’t speak up right away, but it doesn’t take him an overly long time to find words. “Well, I don’t know if I’d say it quite like that. It was all his fault that I was there, you know—in this position. He was—making a fool of me.”
“Okay,” I say. “So, why did you call me?”
“Well—I wanted to know what’s going on with him.”
“He hasn’t contacted you?”
“Yes, he left a message on my voice mail four days ago. I’m hard to get a hold of and I don’t have e-mail. I get snail mail at work and I don’t know if he knows that address. He should, but—I just got the job really recently. And I wasn’t very excited about it, you know? I wanted something better. So anyway, I took the job and worked for a while, and then when I talked to Ed and he convinced me to go with him, well, I sort of quit my job. But I guess they kind of held it open for me and all. At least they hadn’t filled the position yet, and—I kind of had to make my case, but they let me come back.”
“So, anyway,” I say, when he stops speaking, “what was on the voice mail?”
“Well, it’s kind of weird, see. It’s just this—something like, ‘Something amazing happened to me, bro! I pulled off because I saw a cross on the side of the road.’ I’m guessing it’s something like one of those crosses put up because somebody got killed there, you know. And then he says, ‘While I was sitting there, that sickness I’ve been feeling in my stomach and that I was feeling then left me. I know it won’t come back. I’m a new man. A mark’s been put on me. And my notebook makes more sense. I read in it a little. I think there are more pages written in it. I wish you here, little brother. This is incredible,’ and that was it.”
“Yes?” I say. Does he want me to diagnose his brother’s condition? Explain whether or not I think he really is better and why or what? I try to calculate when Mike heard the message, if what Ed told him would have happened after the last thing I’d heard about—Ed’s description of the tourist center just across the border in Texas.
“So what do you think?” Mike asks.
“About what?” I say, stalling, thinking of other things, as well as genuinely being uncertain what he wants me to say.
“I think I need to stop him,” Mike says. “I mean, he needs to see a psychiatrist or something, right?”
I have to admit I’d thought the same thing. But the idea sounds much worse coming from Ed’s brother. Furthermore, I never thought it right to force Ed into anything. And my opinion of Ed and the situation isn’t fixed. I change my mind frequently, and my mind is changing. “He’s there now,” I say. “He must have reached this place and met the man who owns these ranches. By now he’s found out if the whole thing is on the up and up.” On the up and up. That seems like an odd thing to say. I don’t think I usually talk that way. Maybe I do.
“So you don’t think I should do anything? Send somebody after him? This could be some cult group, you know.”
Yes, I know. I’ve thought that too. But I’ve also thought that it could be the real deal. A part of me envies Ed. In fact, I’ve envied him for quite some time, ever since he first came up with this scheme, I think. And the more I hear from him, the more I envy him, not less.
“Well?” Mike says.
I realize I still haven’t responded to his questions.
“No, “ I say quickly. “I don’t think you should do anything.”
But Mike seems to have realized where I’m coming from and decided he’s had enough of the conversation. There’s a dial tone on the other end of the line. He’s hung up.

The next day I find myself thinking about Ed from time to time. I want to know what’s happening to him. After the barrage of information, I haven’t heard from him today. But I haven’t checked my e-mail. I keep telling myself I should do that.
And then when I get home from work, Jeanne hands me another postcard.
It’s got a map of the United States on it with a big arrow pointing to Texas. The lettering on the state is bigger, more three-dimensional-looking, so you can read it out of all the other states. The lettering on the other states is very small, virtually illegible. And the bottom corner of the postcard says “—the place to be!”
Ed’s handwriting is quite small and a bit cramped, as usual. He manages to write quite a bit on the little spot of white on that card. He doesn’t start with a greeting, but plunges right in.

Got new duds and a new outlook. Lost my sick stomach problems. But then I came across these men in chains lying by the side of the road and I stopped and offered to help them but they didn’t want help and didn’t want to move. Two other men climbed over the guard rail toward us. They told me, these two that they were going where I was going. Offered them a ride, but they said they were fine—they wanted to walk. I drove slowly, stayed with them. When we came to a big hill, they took some little cow paths, rather than going over it. I tried again to get them to come with me, but they wouldn’t. I stopped at a rest station at the top of the hill and was reading my notebook when I suddenly felt so tired—hadn’t slept well the night before—fell asleep, and I slept there most of the day. Left my notebook there! Next morning, when I took off, I stopped and asked someone for directions to the ranches, since I felt I was getting a little lost, and they said it’s scary—some animal on the loose where I want to go, so I wanted to read in my notebook, but I had to go back for it.

That’s it. An odd place to stop. But it’s all he had room for, I guess. I take note that this thing was written two days after the first postcards. I stuff the postcard in a drawer with the other two he sent, and a printout of the e-mail from him.
I wonder what difficulty this person Ed talked to was warning him about. I remember that several days ago I heard on the radio that two lions had escaped from a zoo in southern Texas. I can hardly believe Ed might run into them. Poor guy has all the luck, I think. But they’d been caught pretty quickly and taken away in an armored truck. If anything had happened to Ed or really, if the lions had hurt anyone, surely I’d have heard of it. They must not have got him.
On the off chance that Ed might have e-mailed me, I check my messages. My Juno account is a pain, since it takes the program a while to bring up my messages. That’s probably why I check it so rarely. I just can’t bring myself to make the effort.
If it weren’t for the news about the lions I’d heard and the animal he mentioned in his postcard, I probably wouldn’t check my e-mail even now.
But after I download my messages, I bite my lower lip in frustration. There isn’t one from Ed.
My life to me seems so pointless sometimes. And so boring. I wish for something to live for. I wish for a goal, almost any goal, at least anything a little bigger than just staying alive, having some things I think make me happy or happier.
I feel like maybe Ed is on to something. I don’t want to admit it and I’d rather say I think he’s crazy, but I also think if he’s crazy, I may want to be crazy too.

Later, I watch a commercial on TV. It’s an ad for a new series about some private eye. The twist is that the undercover detective is a young woman who looks like anything but the tough-talking, hard-fighting character she supposedly really is. I’ve seen this commercial before, several times, and the show isn’t going to be aired for three weeks yet. What’s the point of running these commercials so far in advance? I think nobody will be interested by then. They’ll be tired of hearing about it and not want to see it for spite at what they’ve been subjected to.
I walk across the room and turn off the TV.

The next evening after work, I go home, chat with my wife, eat supper with my family, and find myself wishing they would sit around the table longer so we could visit some more. I mean really visit, not just talk about what we did that day, but what we’re thinking and feeling, what we hope for and dream of. But soon they all head their separate ways. I think I should offer to play a game with the boys or go on a walk with my wife, but I feel strange suggesting something like that, as I know it will be difficult to avoid questions. They’ll want to know why I’m acting unusual. And even if we do end up doing something together, it’s unlikely we’ll really communicate in an overly meaningful fashion. It’s just not something we usually do.
So, I go to the bookshelf in the hall way and pull a dusty little booklet off the shelf. The title of this book is Direction.. Seems like kind of a corny title to me. But I imagine it might be helpful reading, if not the most interesting. I’d prefer something called Purpose maybe, that is, if this self-help stuff really has anything to offer.
The booklet actually interests me immediately. It starts in first person, and I find myself identifying with this man.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. After treatment and surgery, I went into a period of remission, thinking the danger had completely passed. And it had, for that particular problem. But then, just a couple months ago, my doctor told me I now have bone cancer. He says it’s just a matter of time.
When you find out you don’t have long to live, it makes you look at life very differently. It makes you ask yourself what you want to do with the time you have left and what you feel like you’ve done in the time you already used up. It makes you ask yourself what’s really important, what’s meaningful. And when you take stock of your life—your office job that you spend so much time at, your family members who seem to be going off in their own ways, the tedious small tasks that you perform outside of your job: mowing the lawn, working on the car, fixing the toilet—you can’t help but wonder where to go from here. What direction to take.
I wished I’d helped people more. I could have been a pastor or teacher. I could have volunteered my time at several charities. But I felt that I was now too old and too sick to change the direction of my life. So I tried to just do a better job at the office, to be kinder to people there. But I was so unhappy. I felt I was wasting the time I had left. So I quit my job and made an effort to spend more time with my family. I did get closer to my wife and our children. We played board games, watched videos together, went to the park and had a picnic. But they were quite often busy so that it was hard to plan activities together. They would also get bored with these simple pastimes, and I tired easily when we did do something.
I was still unhappy, unsatisfied.
I wanted to head in another direction, but I just didn’t know what.

The story continues, telling about how the man decides to pack up and move his family to Texas, hoping the fresh air there and the fewer distractions will help him and his family. But his kids don’t all want to go. The two eldest, both in junior college, stay behind and the man’s wife stays with them and joins her husband later. So the man and the youngest child set off right away on their own.
Strange how much this story sounds like Ed’s life recently, I think. Eerie, really. I don’t remember reading this booklet before. I turn it over and look at the back of it. There’s no marking, no publisher. I wonder if Ed planted this thing on my bookshelf.
I think about throwing it away. But I know I don’t want to. I slip it into my pocket instead. I’ll finish reading it later.
Jeanne asks me if I’ll go to the nearest convenience store and put gas in the van, which she usually drives. She had noticed today that it is low but she hadn’t had time to stop. She is making cookies and I fish some dough out of the bowl and eat it before I leave the house. She scolds me, but sounds rather half-hearted and distracted.
After I put gas in the van, I drive home slowly. I wish my errand had taken longer.
As I turn the corner, I notice something dart out into the street. A dog, it looks like. I swerve to miss the dog and end up driving on the wrong side of the road for just a bit. I’m thankful when I pull back into the right lane that there was no one coming.
I stop briefly at an unmarked intersection. It’s in the middle of our residential area.
I have a strange feeling as I keep driving. I can sense a car coming at me, gaining speed. I try to speed up as well.
And then the impact, my car is skidding, and I have this horrible pain in my head.

I get out my vehicle and walk over to the other guy. He’s standing outside his vehicle, with his hands on his hips. He appears to be angry.
He turns around and yells at me, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
He shakes his head and gestures to his car, which, really, doesn’t have a scratch that I can see. “Hope you have good insurance,” he says.
I think, my van is the vehicle with a dent on the side, though, thankfully, it’s relatively small. What is he griping about? But I suppose the accident was my fault? So strange though, I didn’t see him coming at all. Not at all, and I know I didn’t stop long, but I did look both ways before I went. I did.

The next day, my headache still hasn’t subsided. It’s misery. My family has gotten thoroughly tired of my complaining about it. I just can’t get comfortable. TV, reading, anything I do can only distract me for a very little bit before I feel overwhelmed with the pain again.
It occurs to me that I could and probably should go see a doctor. But not only do I not want to, I also have a feeling that he or she might not be able to help me.
I don’t go to work so I have a lot of time to think about my situation. And the thought that keeps coming back to me is that I want to talk to Ed again. I want to know how he’s doing. I want to see him.
Ultimately, I want to make the trip he made and become a part of what he’s become a part of. I am beginning to think that he has found a solution to my problem—the emptiness in my life and now this horrible pain in my head, a pain I wonder if I’d actually always experienced but only now recognized.

I go to a book store and look at several atlases. I contemplate purchasing one.
I have a work vehicle and there’s the van. I can’t take the van, of course. I’m not certain I want to take my work vehicle either, though. It’s not in very good shape. The suspension is pretty much shot and the interior just smells kind of bad. Maybe I should try to look for a flight.
I’m also concerned about the jobs I have lined up. It’s pretty bad form to cancel them. Perhaps I could give the accident as an excuse or the difficulty with not having an assistant, but then would my customers expect me to do the work later? That might not happen either. I’d just have to call them all and tell them my plans and ask if they wanted me to go ahead and complete the job for them or if they’d be willing to let me not do it and then they’d just have to hire someone else.
But could I do this? Just pack up and take off to Texas? What about my family? I’m not a single guy like Ed or Mike. Can I leave my wife and sons? Is it really even the right thing to do to go at all? Not long ago I thought Ed was crazy and now I was thinking about doing the very thing he did. I must be crazy too. I probably was. But I felt I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t do this. Maybe I could convince Jeanne and the boys to join me. I doubted they would, but it was worth a try. Maybe if I found a nice place for us, they would then be willing to come join me. That sounded more like a real possibility. If only I could get Jeanne to go for it. Should I talk to her first or call my customers?
I drive home without having purchased the atlas. I’m determined to talk to Jeanne.
She’s in the living room, flipping through a magazine about gourmet foods. I remember that Jeanne told me once that when she was in school, she’d had some interest in owning her own restaurant someday. That was a long time ago. I wondered if she might ever be interested in that idea again. Maybe in Texas—
Jeanne looks up at me. “How are you doing?” she asks. “Headache still just as bad?”
I shrug. “It’s pretty much the same,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I sit down next to her, but with enough distance between us that I can easily turn my body toward her and see her face.
“Jeanne, honey, I-I think I need to do something,” I begin.
“I think you should go to the doctor,” she says.
I force myself to smile. “I probably should,” I say. “But that’s not what I mean. I think I need to do something bigger—to make a change in my life. It’s just not what it should be.”
She closes the magazine and lays it on the coffee table. Then she folds her arms across her chest. “What do you mean?” she says.
I hesitate, trying to think of the best way to explain, trying to determine how she will respond to what I have to say.
“Well?” she prompts me.
“I-yesterday I—before the accident, I was reading a booklet I found on our bookshelf. It’s called Direction. Do you know how it got there? I don’t remember seeing it with our books before?”
She frowns and shakes her head.
“Well, anyway, it’s about this man who was diagnosed with cancer and decides he wants to do something different with the time he has left. He decides to go to Texas—like Ed.”
Jeanne chews her lower lip and shifts nervously.
I try to hurry on. “I read that yesterday and then I had that little accident—not the big of a deal, really, but now I have this terrible headache, and I can’t go to work and I just keep thinking about Ed and that booklet and my life. How I need direction. And I want to make a change. So I’ve been thinking that—well, that maybe this is what I should do too. Maybe I should go.”
I stop, amazed that she’s heard me out. I hope it means she’s even a little interested herself. Maybe she’ll go with me after all.
Her face is hard to read. She looks concerned but compassionate. Her eyes on me are warm.
But then she shakes her head and says, “Oh, poor boy, what has come over you. You really did do a number on your head. I think you should take a Tylenol and lie down. Surely, you’ll feel better tomorrow and you will forget all about this crazy idea of leaving your family.”
“But I want you all to come with me,” I say. “Or if you won’t come now, after I get there, if it really is wonderful, then maybe you will come.”
“No,” she says. She stands and fixes her gaze on me, her eyes not as soft now. “You can’t do this to us. You can’t go from not caring a bit about us to trying to control our lives.”
“I won’t make you come,” I say.
“You better believe you won’t.” She looks away from me and picks up her magazine. Obviously, as far as she’s concerned, the conversation is over.
I decide maybe it’s better that I consider it over for the moment too.

I leave the room, feeling very confused. Should I still plan to leave? I wonder.
I find the booklet Direction and read it again. I think about Ed and everything he has told me about this change in his life and this trip he embarked on.
I go upstairs and pack a suitcase. Probably I should do something else first, but packing seems like a decisive action. Jeanne will see I mean business when she comes across my packed suitcase.
Next, I call my customers, those with whom I’m scheduled to do lighting in the next few weeks. I don’t have plans for too terribly far in advance.
Most of them are willing to look for someone else to do the job, though they’re not necessarily happy about it. Two saw they absolutely must have me do it.
I hang up the phone after talking to the last of them, and I feel tired and frustrated. My headache seems to be getting worse. I head to the bathroom medicine cabinet and down a couple Tylenol, hoping I’ll soon feel at least somewhat better.
I get on the Internet to look for a flight, hopefully one that leaves soon and isn’t too expensive.
I wish I knew how to contact Ed. Shouldn’t I ask him where to go exactly? I don’t know what would be the best airport to arrive at. I don’t know where these ranches are. And I’ll have to figure out some way to get from the airport to the ranches. Also, I never got a notebook like Ed did. I wonder if I should try to get a hold of one. Maybe I’m supposed to wait for someone to give me one. Maybe I’m not supposed to go otherwise. No, I tell myself, I am going to do this. All of my questions will be answered eventually, I feel sure. Right now, I just have to go.
As it turns out, it looks like I can get on a last-minute deal flight, leaving from Minneapolis tomorrow morning and arriving in the evening at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. I call to verify that there are tickets available. There are several and because they’re now offered as last-minute deals, though they are more expensive tickets than what I’d hoped for, according to the gal on the phone, they are significantly better than they could be. I’ll be paying a fair amount less than I would have if I’d bought tickets a couple months in advance.
“Oh!” she says, “There’s also a flight leaving tonight for Dallas—a late-nighter. That’s cheaper yet.” She tells me how much. It’s not a great deal cheaper, but it is somewhat of a better deal. “You interested?”
“Just one ticket available?” I ask.
“No,” she says, “five or six. Do you need more than one?”
I would like very much to buy tickets for my whole family, but I know Jeanne doesn’t want to come. I wonder if the boys might be interested. I’m pretty sure Jeanne won’t want them to leave her and go with me, but if they want to go, I want them to too. “How long are these tickets available?” I ask and she tells me I have about an hour, at the most. Oh, my, I am cutting it close. Maybe I should go ahead and purchase them. But then I remember my customers. How can I possibly leave tonight or tomorrow when I have two people determined I do the job for them I agreed to do? It’ll take at least three or four days to finish up with them and that’s if they’re happy with the job I do and don’t want to change or add anything. What to do, what to do.
Then there’s a click on the line. I tell the lady I have someone trying to get a hold of me. She says to call her back.
It’s one of my customers who still wanted me to do the job for him. He tells me he’s found someone else to do it.
I’m elated. I call the ticket number again and ask for the woman I was talking to just a few minutes ago.
I tell her, “I’d like to purchase one of those tickets for sure. I’ll call you back in a few minutes if I want some more.” I know there is another customer I’m responsible for, but I decide, if I have to, I’ll take a loss and leave later. Maybe if I tell him he’s the only one, he’ll let me out of it. Or else there has to be some other way to get free of the responsibility. Perhaps I can hire someone else to do it.
She asks for my credit card information and tells me I can pick up the e-ticket at the airport. “Would you like me to e-mail your itinerary? You have one layover.”
I don’t want to bother to check my e-mail. There’s so little time. She’s already told me over the phone, anyway. So I tell her no and hang up.
A few minutes later, the phone rings. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Amazingly, it’s the other customer who still wanted me to do a job for him. He tells me just as I’d hoped he would that he’s found someone else to do it. I can hardly believe it. It has to be a sign, if you believe in that sort of thing, that I’ve made the right decision in planning to leave and to leave tonight.
Unfortunately, talking to the boys is not as positive an experience. At least at first. They are stunned. I had wondered if Jeanne would have said anything to them. She hasn’t and when I tell them she doesn’t want to go, they look at each other. I know they must feel like I’m asking them to take sides.
So I say, “You guys can stay with your mom—don’t feel like you have to go with me. Actually, that’s probably the best, that you stay with her. I’ll send for you, and if you want to, once I’ve found out what this place is like, you can come join me. Would you like that?”
Derek just shrugs his shoulders, but Tim’s eyes are bright. He nods his small head and I want to hug him. I’m tempted to just take him with me anyway, in spite of what I said. But instead, I say nothing and just ruffle each of the boy’s hair. Derek pulls his head away a bit when I touch him. Tim’s hair smells like Johnson and Johnson’s baby shampoo. He’ll never admit to his friends that he still uses the stuff. But regular shampoo gets into his eyes and makes him cry. He seems to me to be so sensitive sometimes, especially for a boy, sweet and quite childish, even for his age, except for those odd few times when he displays unusual wisdom. The youngest takes longer to grow up, I think to myself.
I start to leave them and then I think I must say something else. I’m flying to Texas tonight. It may be quite some time before I see them again. I turn around in the hallway just outside of the room and look back in, past their still open door. “I’m going to miss you guys,” I say. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad,” Tim says.
I glance at Derek. He doesn’t say anything. But as I turn to go, I hear him say, “me too,” and I decide then, that talking to the boys hasn’t been such a bad experience after all.

Trying to think through what I’m going to say, I head down the stairs in search of Jeanne. She’s moved from the living room to the family room and is watching something on TV. Laughing, she turns to me when I come in. “Have a seat,” she says. “This is so funny.”
It’s a rerun of a sitcom I used to really enjoy but that is often rather crude. Today it has no appeal to me. I’m amazed that I have no interest at all in what’s on the television.
“Jeanne,” I say, “I’m leaving tonight—taking a plane to Dallas.” I should have talked to her first, I think. I should have—but I kind of did, I tell myself. She was—is—adamantly against my going.
The anger and shock on her face doesn’t take me off guard like I had thought it might. I very much expect it. I keep talking, not giving her chance to say anything until I’m finished. “I’ve talked to my customers for the upcoming month and they’ve all agreed to find someone else to do the job. So I don’t have any scheduled responsibilities. I’m taking a little money with me, but not much. I think there is plenty in both checking and savings so that you all will be fine for quite some time. I’ve told the boys goodbye.”
“And now you’re telling me,” she says, when I finally stop. Her voice is fairly calm. Too calm, I think. I wait for her to yell at me. But she doesn’t. “Are you not coming back?” she asks simply.
Am I leaving them for good is what she wants to know. My head throbbing, I move toward her. I sit down on the couch next to her. The TV is still on, loud voices and laughter distracting me. I pick up the remote from the coffee table, and turn the TV off. I want to take my wife in my arms, but when I turn toward her, she pulls away. Pushing her hair back from her face, and scooting away from me on the couch, she looks at me with distaste. It is obvious she is still waiting for me to answer her question. “Well?” she says.
“I’m not leaving you,” I say. “Not like you mean. I want nothing more than for you and the boys to go with me. I want nothing more than for us to be together as a family. But I must do this. I must go.”
I want so much to tell her that I will send for them if this is everything I’d hoped for. But I sense that she will not want to hear me say that and I also sense that perhaps it won’t be so easy. She will have to make a decision for herself after all.
“I love you, Jeanne,” I say.
She has turned away from me, and she doesn’t respond to my words.
I decide to go ahead and at least say in part what I am thinking. “Jeanne,” I begin, though even my speaking her name seems to frustrate her, judging from the way she tenses up at the sound of my voice, “I will keep in contact. I don’t believe I’ll be coming back—but I very much hope that you’ll one day join me.”
I speak the last few words softly, afraid of how she will respond. She says nothing and she doesn’t look at me.
After a little while, I go back upstairs to get my things and call the neighbor to see if he’ll take me to the airport. He acts surprised but I tell him I don’t have time to tell him everything and he agrees to take me. It’s time to go.

It’s while I’m waiting for my plane to take off that I begin to really question myself. Wondering what I’m going to do when I arrive, how I’m going to contact Ed, how I’m going to get from the airport to the ranches with no vehicle and not even a specific idea of where these ranches are, I sit in my padded seat, next to many other people sitting on padded seats. These people are reading, talking on cell phones or pay phones, working on laptop computers, making notes in day timers, chatting with the person or people they came with. Only one fits my idea of the quintessential Texan. He stands in the corner of the lobby area, his legs about shoulder width apart. Of course, he’s wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, jeans with a big belt buckle. He’s on a pay phone, his loud, slow drawl distinctive even from a distance, though I can’t make out exactly what he’s saying.
I’m tempted to go introduce myself to him when he hangs up. But there’s no need. He actually walks straight toward me and plops down on the chair next to mine.
“Have somethin’ for ya,” he says.
Trying to make sure he’s talking to me, I sit up a little straighter and look at him curiously.
He nods. “Yea, I’m talking to you,” he says. “And this is what I’m ta give ya.”
He hands me a notebook. It’s not exactly like Ed’s. In fact, it’s not exactly a notebook, but a small tablet, a ruled, yellow pad. But I know that it contains the same information as Ed’s notebook.
I start to ask the man a question, one of many I hope. I need to know where to go, how to get there, what to do when I get there.
But “read it,” he says. “Just read it. Ride southwest and keep the sun in view.” And then he stands up and walks toward the doors. I know there’s no point in running after him.
So I flip through the pages of the tablet. It’s not what I expected. It doesn’t have a map. I don’t see even written directions any where. Much of the writing seems cryptic and I read out loud the words, “’He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.’” I shrug my shoulders. “Well, that makes sense,” I say.
The woman sitting in the chair directly across from me frowns at me. I smile at her apologetically and she returns to her book.
I flip pages back and forth and read silently, a sentence here, phrase here, maybe a paragraph here and there. I don’t know why I don’t read the book consecutively. I guess it just seems too confusing to me and not really narrative, though parts of it are. I’m not sure what genre it is.

Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

All of us, like lost sheep, have strayed away. Each of us has gone our own way. But he took upon himself our wrongs.

He is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no other way.

The wages of wrongdoing are death but the gift of life comes through him.

I begin to realize there is more to what I’m doing than finding a new place to live, more than inheriting a free ranch, getting more exercise and knowing better health. I had sensed and hoped there was more. There had to be more for me to find meaning and direction in my life from this journey. But what was this all about? I did not understand what I was reading.
I try to remember what Ed had said about his notebook after he got it. Had he understood it? It certainly seems to me that he had gotten more from it than I had. With a sigh, I toss my tablet to the floor at my feet and put my head in my hands.
A piece of paper falls out of the tablet.
I pick it up.

The owner of the Heavenly Ranches of southwestern Texas invites you to take the gift of a ranch of your own. You have been chosen for this offer but you must make the choice as to whether or not you will accept it. There is no cost on your part. The price has already been paid.

I stuff the piece of paper back into the tablet and stare at the thing. It’s true, I think. It’s true. What a gift! Had I liquidated my assets, would I have been able to afford this ranch? I have a feeling the answer is no.
A young man in uniform holds some sort of intercom microphone up to his mouth and announces the first boarding call for my plane.
I check my pass and realize I’ll be one of the last few boarding, since I’m not in first-class, but toward the front of business class. It is hard to be patient, but eventually it’s time for me to go.
I board the plane without looking back.

When we land in Dallas, I feel rather groggy. I slept quite a bit while on the two different planes. I hardly even remember the layover and getting on a different plane.
I suppose I should be alert now from getting so much sleep, but I still feel tired.
No one approaches me. It’s not that I had expected anyone too, but I guess I had kind of hoped there might be someone there—like the cowboy.
There are a few cowboy types, but no one looks my way. It seems fairly obvious that no one is interested in me and I am on my own.
I suppose I should try to rent a vehicle. Of course, it would be nice to know where I want to take it too, but I guess I can just head southwest. Can’t be that far away, can it? Texas isn’t that big. Well, okay, it is a big state, but it’s still just one state.
Not sure what to do first, I finally decide to call Jeanne and the boys and tell them I’ve arrived in Dallas. I’ll be as upbeat as possible. They’ll probably ask me what I’m going to do next, and I’ll just tell them I’m renting a car and act like I know where I’m taking it. Maybe they won’t realize how little I actually do know about what I’m doing.
Maybe there’s more information in my tablet, I think. I probably just didn’t get to it. Should I tell them about the cowboy and his gift? Will they think I’m crazy?
At a pay phone, I go through my pockets carefully in search of change. I find what I need to make a call and wait eagerly for Jeanne or one of the boys to answer.
The phone rings several times without anyone picking it up. It’s late, I think. Someone has to be there. But apparently no one is, or else Jeanne just isn’t answering the phone. That could be a possibility. I get the answering machine. I speak quickly, telling them I’ve made it, I plan to rent a car to get to the ranches. “And I met a cowboy before I left the airport in Minneapolis. A real cowboy, boys! Jeanne, you would have got a kick out of him too. He knows about the place I’m going too and he gave me some information about it.”
There, that didn’t sound as strange as the experience had actually been and I certainly hadn’t lied, I think. Maybe it would encourage Jeanne to believe that this place was legitimate. I could only hope.

I end up renting a car from a budget car rental place. The little Saturn smells a bit like smoke, so I roll the window down immediately. This car definitely doesn’t seem like a Texas type of vehicle. But it was what they had available and it’s supposed to get really amazing gas mileage.
There is a fair amount of road noise, though and the suspension seems to be about shot. I wonder if I’ll fly apart any moment. It amazes me that the car rental isn’t more concerned. But I did sign half a dozen papers relieving them from responsibility almost no matter what happens to me. I probably should have gone some where else and paid more money for something nicer. But I have this thing now, and I’m going to use it for a least a while yet.
But I don’t know where to go exactly. I just drive the highway in the general direction I understand I’m supposed to go. I wish I had more specifics. A map would certainly be helpful.
It is getting pretty late and I need a place to stay. I pull over in front of a large antiquated building just off the highway. I don’t know why I think I might be able to stay there but when I get closer to it, I do see a little sign in the window that looks like it says lodging. It’s rather hard to read.
I ring the doorbell. It’s a modern one that looks rather out of place next to the heavy wooden door from another time. Eventually a man in uniform of sorts comes to the door. He has on black pants, a black vest over a white button-down, collared shirt, and pinned to his vest is a name tag. It just says Porter. I assume that’s either his first or last name, but seems more likely to me to be his last.
“Do you have vacancies for the night?” I ask the man. “I noticed the sign in your window. This is some kind of an inn, isn’t it?”
He raises one bushy eyebrow. I find his gesture interesting since I’m also able to raise one eyebrow at a time. I don’t know many people who can. I almost comment to him about it, but then decide not to.
“Not exactly,” he says.
I’ve almost forgotten by now what I asked him, but then I remember and feel confused and curious. What does he mean, this place is not exactly an inn? Either it is or it isn’t, right?
“Let me get the lady of the place for you,” he says.
“Is that necessary?” I ask, but he doesn’t hear or chooses not to respond.
He returns very quickly with a very lovely young woman. She doesn’t say anything but looks at me quietly and calmly.
Porter tells her that I am the man who wants a place to stay for the night and then she asks me where I am going. I mumble something about a ranch in southwest Texas. She smile slowly.
“You have come to a very special place,” she says. “You must be farther on your journey than you think you are.”
I have no idea how to respond to that.
“I remember your friend,” she says. “He spoke of you.”
Now I raise an eyebrow. Could she be talking about Ed?
“We hope you will stay with us for a little while,” she says. “I have three sisters and there are many others here as well. All a part of our family in a sense. You must have supper with us before you retire for the night. We would so enjoy conversing with you.”
Odd to think of there being many people here. It seems so quiet.
“Thank you for the offer,” I say to her, “but I think I would really just like to go to bed. I’m very tired. Tomorrow perhaps I can visit with you all before I go on my way.”
She nods slowly. “Yes, I think that you are right, that that would be for the best. Tomorrow will be better.”
I think to ask her before Porter takes me to my room for the night, “You do know the way to the place I’m going, don’t you? Can you tell me if I am going the right way?”
“There is only one way,” she says, “but I don’t believe it is quite the way you are thinking. You see, it is the cross that will point you in the right direction. Have you come to the cross yet?”
What cross? A crossways? I think about Ed’s seeing a cross alongside of the road. He said that after he had seen that cross, he had no longer felt pain in his stomach. Do I need to find the cross he saw? I just look at her blankly.
“Go with Porter,” she says after a moment of silence in which I haven’t answered her question. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
In the room Porter leaves me in, I pay no attention to the writing desk or stone floors. I simply sit on the bed, hardly recognizing that I’m on a plump feather mattress, virtually unheard of in my experience. I take the yellow pad out of my bag and begin to read it, starting with the very first page and working my way through. And when I finish, it is the next day, I am exhausted, but I now know what the cross is, and what it means to me. I don’t think I’d ever been happier.
Fully dressed, I fall back on my bed and am soon sleeping heavily.

Someone knocks loudly on my door. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, my heart beating rapidly. It takes me a moment to remember where I am and what happened to me last night.
“I won’t come in,” says a voice on the other side of the door. “I just want to know if you are coming downstairs for the noon meal. You must be studying. We haven’t seen you all morning.”
I don’t recognize the voice. It sounds like a woman’s, but not like that of the woman I met the night before. It must be one of her sister’s. I can hardly believe I have slept so long that it’s time for the noon meal already. “When is the meal?” I ask, projecting my voice so that she will hear me from the other side of the door.
“In fifteen minutes,” she says.
“I’ll be there,” I say. And then I get up and brush myself off. I still have on my clothes from the night before. I think I would like to shower and change, but I’m not sure I have time. I don’t want to be late. “You can do it,” I tell myself and hurry to the little bathroom attached to my room.

At the table, I’m surrounded by bright-faced people of apparently all ages and tastes. There doesn’t seem much continuity in type of dress, or style, I should say, but there is one very noteworthy similarity—all of us are wearing white. In my closet I found a linen button-down shirt and pair of slacks, both creamy colored, which I put on after my shower. The young woman next to me is wearing a simple white cotton sundress with a white sweater. She looks like a school girl. Across from me is a middle-aged man in a white turtleneck and white jeans. Next to him, there is an older man wearing a white T-shirt, white pants, and white suspenders. On the other side of the middle-aged man sits a woman about my age. She has on an off-white jogging suit.
Was the woman I met last night wearing white? I was so tired. I just don’t remember. It doesn’t seem like Porter was wearing white though. I look about for him and don’t see him any where.
The meal is nothing short of outstanding. Steak, baked potato dripping with butter and sour cream, veggies cooked just perfectly and seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pepper. I feel I’ve reached paradise. And the greatest thing about it is the company I’m keeping. The people around me in a very short amount of time become great friends. The two women, the younger one and the one my age, turn out to be sisters of the woman I met last night. They speak to me with eagerness, as though we were high-school classmates. They ask me what has brought me here and they ask about my family, my friend Ed, and my experiences of the night before into this morning, which I hinted at first and then they questioned me about. They and the men around me listen to me carefully and then they share their own stories.
“Are you very excited about continuing on your way?” the younger woman asks me.
“I am,” I say, without hesitation.
“Do you feel as if the past never happened but then at other times you are concerned about it?”
“Yes, there are things I sometimes must deal with that I would like to put behind me. I have some doubts, yet, and many questions,” I say. “I must continue to think about the cross, about the words in my note pad, and keep my thoughts fixed on my goal.”
“Why are you so eager to continue on?” asks the young woman.
“I am very much looking forward to meeting the owner of this place.”
“Do you have a family? Are you married?” the woman my age asks me.
“I do,” I say. “I have a wife and two young children.”
“Why didn’t you bring them along with you?”
“I wish I could have!” I lean toward her, hardly realizing I’m doing so. “They didn’t want to come with me. My wife particularly was very much against it.”
“But you should have talked to them and told them how much they have to lose by staying behind.”
“I tried, but they didn’t believe me.”
She shakes her head. “Did you tell them of your sorrow? Your pain and fears?”
“Oh, yes,” I say. “They saw it in me as well; I know they did.”
“So why did they say they wouldn’t come?”
“My wife was afraid, I think, of losing the good things that she now enjoys, and she feels no certainty that the life I’m seeking is a better one. My boys are very loyal to their mother, but also, I think they are more interested in their lives as they are now. I don’t think they have much interest in facing the difficulties I may encounter. I know it will not all be easy.”
She nods slowly, her eyes very kind. “But perhaps you didn’t live in such a way as to encourage them to believe you, to listen to you,” she says quietly.
“Maybe so. I failed them many times in the past and I’m sure they thought I might very well do so again in the future.”
“It is not right, though, for them to judge you so harshly for your wrongs.” She sighs.
As we eat, I continue to visit with these two women as well as the men around me. I so enjoy the conversation. Mostly, we talk about what is to come and the goodness of the man who has made a new future possible for us, a man unlike any other, beyond any other, beyond humanity in general and specific.
But he suffered in order that we gain, I now know this to be true. And he can identify with others who suffer and furthermore, he shows great kindness to them. Also, he knows what it is like to be in need, and he has made many who have nothing to be rich.
I delight more in what I’m able to share and what I’m told than even in the food that I’m eating. We talk until late into the afternoon, and we sing together. The man sitting across from me gets up and teaches us all a song which we sing without any musical accompaniment, but it is beautiful.
After the meal, the sisters take me and a few others on a tour of the place. They show me some records of the owner of the ranches. They take me to a room with an immense number of clothing and accessory items, enough to provide for many, many people. They show me also artifacts that have belonged to people who came through in the past, some of whom are famous, whose names I almost instantly recognize. They show me through a window the view of a mountain range off in the distance. They tell me that these mountains are covered with woods, orchards with almost every fruit imaginable and some with which they say I most likely am unfamiliar, vineyards, flowers, and springs and fountains of fresh, cold water.
I wanted to go there immediately but they told me I must not leave just yet. They take me back to the room of clothing and ask me if I would like anything in this room. I take another set of clothes and a slingshot. Not much of a weapon, certainly, but I hardly think I’ll need one. I think I may save it and give it to Derek and Tim to play with, when I see them again. I begin to feel more confident that I will indeed see them again. Surely, when I tell them how wonderful my experiences have been, so much better than Ed’s, they will want to come join me soon.
When I leave, I bid Porter goodbye and ask him if anyone else has just left whom I might follow. It would be nice to travel with friends. Porter tells me there is someone getting ready to leave who needs a ride. “He was thinking about taking the bus,” Porter says. “It would be wonderful if you could give him a ride instead.”
I nod my head eagerly, hoping I will recognize this man as one of the people sitting near me the night before. Porter goes to look for the person he spoke of and when he returns with him, I’m at first a little disappointed that I don’t recognize him at all. He has reddish hair that sticks up on his head in all directions and his eyes are a slightly odd shade of blue, extremely pale. He has on white shorts and an oversized hooded white T-shirt. “This is Frank,” Porter says.
“Harris,” I say, holding out my hand toward Frank.
He shakes my hand firmly.
I say, “Harris is my last name actually. My first name is John—but I had a good friend by the same name so we went by our last names instead, to avoid confusion.”
“Nice to meet you, John Harris,” Frank says.
“Just call me Harris, please,” I say.
“Thank you for letting me join you. Should make it much easier for me,” says Frank.
“I’ll enjoy your company,” I say.
Porter hands me a large paper back. “Food for your journey,” he says. I thank him warmly.

Frank dozes next to me while I drive down a large hill into a valley. The road is very narrow and I find it difficult to stay on my side of it, especially when a semi comes barreling down the opposite hill, straight toward me. It also seems to be having trouble staying in its lane, but its driver seems considerably less concerned about the situation than I am. I worry that I should pull off the road completely to avoid a collision. As the truck draws nearer, I see a picture of a dragon painted on the front of it, between the headlights, and also on the sides of it. At least at first I think it’s a dragon. When I get closer yet, it seems more like a monster with the characteristics of a dragon, a bear, and a lion. I slow down. The truck is just driving too fast. But then it suddenly slows too. I breathe a sigh of relief. Then the driver honks his horn loudly and Frank awakens. I realize what’s happening just in time to slam on my brakes, as a deer darts out in front of me and stops just a little ways away from my car, directly ahead of me. I watch the deer until it finally walks off the road. My heart is beating so quickly, I feel like Frank must be able to hear it.
After the deer leaves the road, I hear someone yelling at me. I look out my window and see the truck driver waving his arms in the air and calling to me. He’s pulled off the side of the road and seems to be motioning for me to do the same. I wonder if there’s something wrong with my vehicle. I pull over and soon the truck driver walks up next to my window. I frown at him; it seems he came upon me rather quickly. I didn’t see him walk across the road.
“Where’d you come from and where are you going?” the truck driver asks.
I tell him, wondering why he’s asking me.
“Those ranches are mine,” he says. “I’m the owner of them.”
“No,” I say. “It can’t be.”
“Well, all right. I don’t own them now, but once I did. I own others just as good and I’m much better to deal with. This man is harsh and unfair. He makes promises but doesn’t keep them and it’s very difficult to get to one of his places. I’ll keep you away from him. I don’t think he’s really the one you want to have dealings with. Why, he’s crazy, many people think! I bet you’ve thought that before about him, about the whole idea.”
I had to admit I had.
The man keeps talking, trying to convince me. Frank says nothing and it doesn’t really seem the driver is so much interested in Frank anyway. He seems determined to get me to go with him.
Finally, I just start my car and drive away.
The next thing I know the truck driver is following me, his large vehicle almost on top of my small one. I drive faster and faster, as fast as I dare, but as I speed up, he continually speeds up with me. He rides my bumper closely, so much so, I start to think he wants to hit me, and then I’m almost certain of it. And I know that it would be more than dangerous for my little car to be hit by a semi. I don’t even want to contemplate how bad that experience might be. The fact is there’s a good possibility I wouldn’t survive it. He follows us this way for quite some time and actually does ram into the back of my car a couple times. I skid into the other lane but manage to get back over before anything happens to us. Frank goes back to sleep. I can hardly believe it. I’m running out of gas and feeling so tired. I still don’t know what’s going to happen. And then I took a sudden turn and lost the truck driver. I could hardly believe it. The turn is, I was fairly certain, on the way to where I was going, and it seems to me the truck driver should know it, but apparently he doesn’t, or just didn’t notice it coming up.
“Thank you,” I whisper out loud.
After a while, I finally feel like I can relax a bit, though I have my eyes out for the next gas station. It’s definitely time to stop. But the warning light hasn’t come on yet and we’re in a fairly urban area so I don’t think we’ll run out of gas before I find a place to stop.
I stop at a large service station and try to assess the damages to the car. A bit of plastic in one back corner has been knocked out. Both of the taillights are broken, a chunk is missing from the bumper, and the exhaust pipe is dragging. All in all, it’s worse than I’d thought.
Thankfully, there’s a mechanic shop attached to the gas station and I find someone to look at the car. He spends a while working on it while Frank and I sit at a table inside the convenience store part of the service station. I drink a cappuccino and stare out the window tiredly. Frank eats a donut.
An employee of the place comes over to us to visit with us a bit. I tell him where we’re headed. He shakes his head.
“You should turn back now,” he says.
“Why?” I say.
“You’ve got to cross through a large wilderness area next to get where you’re going.”
“We know,” Frank says.
“Well, it’s totally uninhabited and there’s a reason for it.”
“We’re going through it,” says Frank.
I look at him curiously. It had annoyed before that he’d hardly paid any attention when I thought we were going to get killed. It was nothing short of a miracle that the truck driver hadn’t killed us. Seemed pretty obvious that had been his intention, I‘d thought. But now Frank felt like saying something. Now he speaks up to indicate he believes everything’s going to be just fine. I wonder if that means it’ll be just fine for him, but perhaps not so fine for me. Is he going to sleep again while I deal with this next difficulty?
So I find myself starting to frown at Frank a little, while I think about him.
“It’s a very dangerous place,” says the worker.
“How’s that?” I say.
“It’s a very dark road through this wilderness area, even in broad daylight. For some reason, it’s always cloudy there. And you can hear ghostly howls, sounds of utter misery, the voices of people who’ve gone that way before, I think, and haven’t ever come out of the wilderness.”
Frank shakes his head and starts to say something but I stop him with a look.
“Do you think it’s not the right way to where I’m going?” I ask. “I think it’s the right road.”
“I wouldn’t choose it,” he says.
“It’s the right road,” says Frank.
I almost hope it will take the mechanic a very long time to finish with the car. I find myself not so eager to continue our journey.
But in about an hour the car is ready for us. I ask Frank if he’d like to drive. At first he refuses and then he changes his mind and agrees. So with him behind the wheel, we continue on our way.

As we drive, the road becomes gravel, the sky does indeed seem quite dark, and I can hear the wind howling around us. It seems as though a voice in the wind is saying, “Back, Back,” urging us to turn around.
To one side of us is a dark ditch and it looks to be rather deep. “Frank,” I say, intending to point out to him that the road is on the edge of precipice of sorts.
“I know,” he says, and I remain silent.
The other side of the road appears quite muddy. It must have rained recently. Probably the bottom of the ditch is muddy too, I think. The mud on the side of the road that I can see seems thick. I picture our car stuck in it, the wheels turning futilely.
“It’s so dark,” Frank says. “I can hardly see what’s in front of me.” It is something like a dense fog in all directions, though it doesn’t look quite like fog, unless the fog is heavy with some strange sort of pollution. It seems to me a darker color and texture, almost grainy, as though the very air is some concoction that hasn’t been blended well.
We continue on a ways and then Frank says, “There is smoke coming up from the road.”
I think the smoke may be coming from our car, and tell Frank so. He shakes his head. “I’ll get out and check,” I say.
He looks at me doubtfully, but stops the car, as much to the side of the road as he can without getting it into the mud. I get out and peer under the car. The smoke is definitely not under the car. I can see it in my peripheral vision in front of me. I walk out in front of our car, not even thinking about the possibility of a car coming at us from the other direction.
What I see makes me cry out, hardly aware I’m doing so. Cutting into the edge of the road is the mouth of a pit with smoke rising from it. I stop at the edge of it and peer in. Flames shoot up, and I pull back. “Can we drive past this?” I ask myself out loud. “Will our car fit on what’s left of the road?” I try to size the car up, comparing it with my eye to the amount of road there still is left after noting how much the pit cuts into it. It’s impossibly to say for sure, although I do feel I can say pretty confidently that’s it’s no sure thing that we’ll make it. Maybe we should just leave the car and walk, though I realize that will make reaching our destination much more of an ordeal.
Maybe we should just go back, I think, but there are dangers that way too. We’ve actually done well to get this far. “We will go on,” I say to myself.
But then I hear myself saying, “You shouldn’t be doing this—you’re crazy and so are Ed and this man that you and he and Frank are following after. This is a fairy tale you’ve bought into. Go home to your family and stop acting like an idiot.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing myself say. I want to stop but I keep on speaking along the same lines, saying all manner of negative things about the ranches and their owner, using language my mother would have been more than scandalized to hear come from my mouth.
Just then, Frank gets out of the car and walks up to me. I hear his voice as he approaches. “Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” he says, “I will fear no evil for he is with me.”
I stop speaking and turn to my friend. “I am glad you have come with me,” I say to him. “And I’m glad for what you just said.” I am not alone. Nor are we alone, Frank and I. The presence of another is with us.
We get back into the car and Frank proceeds to drive forward.
We totter on the edge of the pit. I can see the flames in my window. I close my eyes but I know the flames are still there even though I can’t see them, and I can feel the heat on the plastic of the door pressing against my arm. I pull away from it, but I can still feel heat radiating from it.
“It’s all right,” Frank says a few minutes later. “We’ve made it.”
Sweat drips down his face. He is gripping the steering wheel with both hands, his knuckles white. His eyes are focused straight ahead and he doesn’t look at me even for a second, even though he is speaking to me.
We drive in the dark for a while longer, and then the sky begins to lighten. In time, it is almost as bright as when we first started out, though by now it is late afternoon, early evening.
We have begun to relax and then we see it—a pile of bones by the side of the road, near a cave in a rock cliff ahead. We assume the bones are animal bones, but as I think about the size of them, noticeable even just observing through the passenger window of the car, I have a sick feeling that they may be human.
Thankfully, no monster of any sort presents itself and we drive on without danger.
“There was a man in that cave,” Frank says, after we’ve driven past it.
“You’re kidding,” I say, turning to him.
“No,” says Frank, “I’m quite sure. He’s a very old man.”
I don’t want to talk about him or speculate as to what he may be. “Let’s sing a song,” I say, “one of the ones we learned at the inn.
And we sing together as the road climbs upward, out of the valley in wilderness land.

“Frank,” I say after a little while. “You’re driving so slowly. We’re never going to reach our destination.”
“I’m driving the speed limit,” he says.
“Well, you can go at least five miles over,” I say. “It’s getting dark out.”
“I don’t think we’ll make it tonight anyway,” he says. “We got too late a start and have stopped too often.”
“I still think you should drive faster,” I say. He makes no effort to speed up even a little and I fold my arms across my chest and stare out the window in frustration. “All right,” I finally say. “Pull over. This is my car—I’m the one who rented it.”
Frank pulls over and we change places so that I’m the one in the driver’s seat.
I quickly speed up to five miles over the speed limit and then my speed creeps up a bit more and I’m going first seven and then ten miles over the speed limit. The next thing I know I hear a police siren behind me and see a police car with its lights flashing in my rearview mirror.
I pull over.
Amazingly, the policeman only gives me a warning, rather than issuing me a ticket, but I feel very foolish and look at Frank apologetically. He smiles slightly. “It’s okay, bud,” he says.
Thankful for his encouragement and the fact that he doesn’t seem to have any bad feelings toward me, we continue on our way quite pleasantly. I truly am thankful to have him with me.
We stop at a campground for the night and put up the three-man tent Frank has with him. We hike up a trail for a ways, using Frank’s flashlight for light. It feels good to stretch our legs. As we walk, I ask Frank about his experiences up until now, what brought him where he is. I don’t know why I hadn’t asked him earlier. I guess I had too many other things on my mind.
“I’m from Iowa,” he says. “I heard a rumor that my state—and yours too—where in danger of being destroyed by fire.”
“Really? Just Minnesota and Iowa?”
“No, a larger area—more than just those two states—I’m just not sure how big, how many states.”
“Where did you hear this? How was it to happen? Terrorist attack?”
“I don’t know. Different people had different explanations, but a lot of people were saying it—all kinds of different people near me whom I came into contact with. Your friend Ed’s brother Michael lived near me. He told me about Ed’s decision to go to Texas. He told me about going with him. And he told me about turning around when they had car trouble and people told them they shouldn’t go where they were going, that it wasn’t what they thought it was. He told me he decided his brother was crazy.”
“But you didn’t think so,” I say.
Frank shrugs. “I didn’t think that much of it first. Mike’s kind of lazy, you know? He lives next door to my sister and she says she’s never seen him doing yard work—his folks, yes, but not him. I think he’s always been jealous of his brother. Ed has so much more drive and his parents are prouder of him than of Mike. Now Ed and Mike’s folks think Mike abandoned his brother. They don’t agree with what Ed’s doing but they don’t think much of Mike at all. It’s really interesting. I’d say Mike’s plans have backfired. My sister was on Ed’s side from the beginning; she was just fascinated by what he was doing the minute his mom told her about it.”
“Do you think Mike might eventually want to join Ed?”
“No, I really don’t think so,” says Frank.
“I suppose I don’t really think he will either,” I say. “But forget about him—I want to know more about how you got here. Was it your sister? Did she convince you to go? Did the two of you start out together and then it took you longer? Did she go first?”
He looks amused at all my questions. “No. She’s still in Iowa. I think she was really interested in going. I think she really thought Ed had found something, but I don’t think she thought it was for her. She feels she has to stay where she is—she has a family to take care of, you know.”
“Sure.” I sigh, and look away, thinking of my own family, but not sorry that I have come, not a bit.
“I’ve had quite a bit of a different type a trip of it than you have, I’d guess,” Frank says. “I’ve hitchhiked most of the way. And I’ve not had too much trouble catching rides, either.”
He shakes his head. “At one point, I got a ride with a woman who tried to seduce me—a middle-class woman of middle age. She was driving a minivan and you know she has kids and stuff. But she kept asking me personal questions, telling me she found me attractive, and stroking my leg. Finally, I told her to let me out—right then and there. She was hurt, I think, but she did as I asked.”
“Wow, that’s a bad situation,” I say.
“I also got a ride with an older man who offered me a job—a good one—at his company. He said it wasn’t difficult work—marketing, but they were well-established—and I would be to him like a son. He said he’d been looking for someone like me. ‘I have only daughters,’ he told me, ‘no sons. I’d love it if you’d marry one of them, or all three!’
“At first I was kind of interested, but then as he continued to talk, I just got a sense that it would a very bad thing to go with him. And, it was odd, I thought I saw written on his forehead ‘Put off this man,’ and I had a sense he was not to be trusted. I turned him down and he dropped me off, but he was not happy with me, and almost clipped me with his car, quite deliberately I think, when he drove away. I sat there on the side of the road when he left, and for a minute or so, I had trouble catching my breath. It was as though someone had hit me hard in the chest. I felt it was a punishment for my secret inclination at the first to go with the old man.
“Another one who picked me up, asked me about my journey, and when I told him what I was up to, he tried very hard to convince to go back from where I came from. He told me he felt sure my friends would think me a fool if I continued in this way. He told me I was acting in a very unintelligent fashion—stupid, actually.” Frank smiles. “And he seemed an educated man. He did say much that made me feel rather low, rather dumb. He also said he knew of people such as myself, with lofty goals, who in the end, made just as many mistakes if not more than other without such high aspirations. I didn’t know what to say to him at first but that everyone believes in something that may not seem rational or cannot be completely explained and that to judge by the way people respond to the truth—what people do who claim to aspire to it—is not a fair judgment of the truth itself. And I was glad when he left me.”
“I’d be glad too,” I say.
By now we’ve hiked the trail and come back on it to our tent. We sleep in our clothes. Frank has a sleeping bag. I pull out some extra clothing to put on and a shirt I ball up to use for a pillow.

When the morning comes, as we pack our things into the car, a man approaches us from a nearby campsite. “Hello there!” he says to us. “Where did you all come from and where are you going?”
When we tell him, both of us, I think, expecting him to mock us, we’re quite surprised to hear him say, “I’m going to the same place.”
“Well, that’s great!” says Frank. “We should caravan.” He looks at me to see if I agree with his idea.
I nod and offer my support, saying “Sure. Please do.”
“That would be wonderful,” he says. “Would one of you be willing to ride with me for a time? I’d so much enjoy the company.” His offer is made toward both of us, but he looks toward me as he speaks.
I quickly agree to go with him, as I’m thinking it would be interesting to meet someone new. I’m also interested to find out what brought him here.

He turns out to be very talkative. He first tells me he likes to talk and I say I hope we’ll have a profitable discussion and he tells me he think that there aren’t very many people who really talk to accomplish something. I say that’s a shame and he says he appreciates my conviction and thinks we should talk of good things and that talking about good things will accomplish something. He says that talking of such things will give us more knowledge and help us learn how to pass knowledge on more effectively.
I agree with him but add that we need to have a source to draw knowledge from, and we can’t simply gain knowledge by talking about things, by sharing our views, without having a source.
He agrees and asks me what I would like to talk about. He says he can talk about anything—moral or profane, political, scientific, trivial—you name it.
His comment strikes me as rather odd.
I suggest we talk about right and wrong. He says we should openly declare wrong to be wrong. I say we should despise evil, put it from us. He says there is no difference between what he’s saying and what I’m saying. He says knowledge consisting of an understanding of one’s own capabilities for good will keep one from evil. I say there is no one who does good or can get himself to be good. We are all evil and something outside of ourselves is required for our goodness. It can not and will not be our own doing. He grows tired of our conversation and suggests we stop somewhere for coffee.
When we stop at a McDonald’s, Frank pulls me aside and tells me he recognizes this man, though he doesn’t believe he’s ever met him personally—that he’s from Frank’s town, near Frank’s sister and Ed’s family. We both decide he probably is making this trip because of hearing about Ed or Frank.
After we leave the restaurant, we travel on our own again. Frank and I in the car I’ve rented and our new friend on his own again in his car. He’d indicated he wanted to be alone again for a bit. I’d seen it coming.
He follows us for awhile and then turns off somewhere and we lose him. Frank and I agree that he probably doesn’t want or expect us to wait for him. It seems fairly obvious he intended to lose us.

When we stop at a gas station a little later in the day, I’m taken aback when I’m approached by a man I recognize. I know I have met him before, but I can’t think of how I know him, when we met.
Frank, who is near me, walks over and takes the hand of the man. After they shake hands, Frank exclaims, “Well, it’s good to see you! What are you doing here?”
And as they visit, I ponder where I’ve met the man until I remember. We met at the airport! He was wearing a cowboy hat and boots. Now he has on jeans and a flannel shirt. Tennis shoes have replaced the boots and a baseball cap the cowboy hat. But it’s the same man. I wonder how Frank knows him.
When I pay attention to their conversation, the man is saying, “Well, I’m sure glad things are going well for you—that you’ve triumphed in spite of your difficulties. I’m sure glad. Keep your focus and keep on. You will soon obtain your goal.”
“Thank you,” Frank says, and I add my thanks as well.
“These difficulties are the way of it but they will soon be past. To get where you want to be though, you next have to pass through a town that will be a challenge to you. I should say, the people there will challenge you. They may even try to kill you. In fact you can be sure that they not only will try to kill you but may very well succeed with one or both of you. Be faithful to death and you will experience life. If you die there, though your death will be unnatural and you may experience great pain, you will have a better hope to come because you will instantly escape your miseries and know life eternal, life real. But if you continue on, this will be good as well. Just remember, whatever happens, be faithful.”
He leaves the store and Frank and I stare at each other, trying to understand what he has just told us. Of course, we really don’t understand, not completely, anyway, but we accept it.
“He was the one who gave me my notebook,” Frank says.
“Me too,” I say.
“I think he’s the one for everyone—or else someone very like him,” says Frank.
I cock my head to one side, wonderingly. I say nothing.

Back in the car, we drive just a few more miles and come to a sign that reads “Vanity Fair.” I pull out my map of Texas and look for this city but I can’t find it on the map.
“Let’s not stop here,” Frank says.
I’m quick to agree with him.
But the colorful shops on every side of us as we drive through the Main Street of the town catch our eye and we both gawk out the windows at the many things for sale. Jewelry, scarves, real estate, food, televisions—all manner of things are being sold. And there are entertainers on a number of the street corners: jugglers, singers, people who try to guess your weight and if they guess correctly you get a prize, stand up comedians. It’s a little like a bazaar and a state fair midway combined. There are also a number of theaters. Several of the shops specialize in cultural items from specific countries and a few are apparently just world-conscious with names like “World Together” or “Global Unity.” In the windows, they have items on display that vary from maracas, kilts, and fancy European face creams to lighted globes and globe bookends.
“We’ve got to stop and look around a little,” I say. “This is fascinating.”
“But what about what—“
“I know what he said,” I interrupt Frank, “and we’ll be careful, of course. We won’t stay long. But let’s just park and look around a little bit. Just for a little while.”
So I park the car in one of the fair parking lots and pay the attendant three dollars. It’s not a bad price for parking, I think.
As we walk through the crowds, peering at the items on display in one store after another, it’s very obvious that we really stand out from among the other people. We’re wearing white, and while that might be a little different almost anywhere, here, especially, we don’t blend in a bit. All of these people have on brightly-colored clothing. There’s a great deal of red, especially. So we draw a number of curious stares. In fact, the people looking at us don’t seem merely curious. They seem annoyed or somewhat amused. Someone calls out to ask me if I am a snowman and another if I’m with some kind of cult group.
I say to one, “No, we’re just passing through on our way to a ranch. We’ve recently experienced a change in our lives and changed our clothes as well.”
He snorts at me, but the expression on his face is not merely one of derision. I get the impression that he hardly understood me, as though I speak a different language. He grunts something to his companion, and I don’t understand what he says to her not merely because he is not speaking to me, but also because his words to me seem unintelligible. Perhaps he simply doesn’t speak English. But I’m pretty sure I’d understood him asking if I was with a cult group.
The twosome quickly moves away from me.
Frank and I tire of looking at the things on display. Soon it becomes apparent that these items are not the sort of thing we are interested in. Almost all of the clothing items and a many of the gift items are printed with pictures of poorly dressed women or have off-color words on them. There are quite a few bars interspersed in the shops, and so many of the people behave or speak in a way that makes us uncomfortable. I see a man and women standing just outside one shop, rubbing against each other and kissing. Then they begin to fondle each other, and she unzips his pants.
I quickly look away and keep walking. I determine to catch up to Frank, who is a little ahead of me, and tell him I’m ready to head back to our car and I think we should get to it as quickly as we can.
As I hurry forward, I pass several small shops that are situated very close together. A shopkeeper calls out to me. “What will you buy?”
I ignore him, and he calls after me again.
“The truth,” I yell back.
By now, I’ve caught up to Frank. I grab his sleeve and call his name. “Let’s go back to the car,” I say.
He turns around. “Yes, let’s.” The man leers at me. It’s not Frank.
I let go of him and rush into a nearby shop. I look around inside it and out the window. I don’t see Frank anywhere.
There are a crowd of people across the street. They keep growing in number and noise level. “Who do you think you are?” one screams. I hear the crack of a hand slapping skin. I have a sickening feeling that Frank may be in the crowd’s midst, may be the object of their ridicule. As I watch, after awhile I do see him, being dragged by two men with a strong hold on him.
I’ll get the car and come back for him, I think. That’s the best way I can help.
But when I leave the shop, the man I’d thought was Frank grabs me and drags me toward he crowd, yelling, “I’ve found the other one.” Some of the people look up, while others can’t seem to be distracted from tormenting Frank. Frank sees me and looks glad and sad at the same time. I can see he’s been slapped a couple times. There are hand marks on his face.
“So, this is your friend?” One of the men holding Frank nods at me.
“We are passing through,” I say. “Please let us go and continue on our way. We have nothing to do with you.”
“Come now, you don’t want to buy anything from us? We have anything you could want for sale. Surely you will buy something,” Frank’s captor says.
“Truth,” I say softly. “We will buy truth.”
“I can’t hear you,” he says.
So I speak louder. “We will buy truth,” I say again.
He laughs. “You are a madman.” He says to the crowd. “These men are mad.” He punches me in the gut and I double over. “They should be locked up.”
They drag us to a pet shop and demand that the owner give them cages big enough to put us into and then they precede to do just that—shove us each into a cage and lock the door.
The man who first brought me to the fray goes to the door of the shop and opens it. “Come see the madmen,” he says. “Come one, come all! No charge!”
We manage to sit calmly in our cages while people came in to gaze at us, to circle us and goad us with words and sometimes a finger poked into the cage, and someone throws some pocket change in mine, at my feet. Someone else manages to get it out. I keep away from it myself as much as possible except that he can’t reach some of it, and I hand it to him. He takes it from me but sneers at me. “Think you’re too good for our money, do you?”
He isn’t the only one who spits in my face.

A young woman comes up and squats down in front of me. “You are being wronged,” she says. “I have been watching you and it is obvious that you and your friend are not madmen.”
I want to talk to her more but someone shoves her away and scolds her for turning against her townsfolk and taking the part of strangers. “I’m not the only one who feels this way,” she says, and I try to see if she is with others who may feel as she does. As far as I can tell, she is alone. There may be others here who feel sorry for us as she does but they don’t seem to be making any effort to be known or to do anything to help us. They, if they do exist, seem to be taking care to keep themselves from being recognized as sympathizing with us. But how can I blame them. Of course they don’t want to receive the kind of treatment we’re getting.
I remember what our friend had told us before we came to this town and I wish that I had not suggested we get out and take a look around. But I have a feeling that even if I had not made that suggestion that we still would have ended up here. They would have stopped us, somehow, I sense, though I know not how. Our friend had known something like this would happen to us.
When there are not so many people around, Frank gets into a conversation with the shop owner. He tells him where we are going and why. They shopkeeper actually seems a little bit interested. He and Frank talk for quite some time and then he gives us something to drink—some sort of Kool-Aid that isn’t particularly tasty but is all we’ve had to eat or drink all day.

In the afternoon, they finally let us out of our cages. We are tired, hungry, humiliated. They take us to a courthouse and stand us in front of a judge. I ask someone what on earth we are being tried for. He mumbles something about disturbing the peace. I ask him if that is all and he shrugs and looks away from me. I start to ask him what will most likely happen to us next and he simply glares at me. I fall silent.
The judge speaks to us a few moments later. “You’ve been indicted for disturbing the peace and unlawful soliciting.”
“What?” I say. Frank shoots me a look as does the judge. I look down at my feet.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the judge asks. He addresses Frank.
“We’ve made no disturbance,” Frank says. “And we have not solicited—we’ve nothing to sell—unlike everyone else here, it seems. We have shared with some where we are headed and some people have been drawn to us and desired to know more about us because of the way we’ve conducted ourselves. That is all.”
One of the men who had hauled Frank around earlier is next called upon to speak. He says he’s known us for a long time. “Or him,” he adds, indicating Frank. Why don’t you call him by name then? I think. You don’t even know his name!
“He’s the sort with loyalties to no one, certainly not the law. He does whatever he sees fit. And he condemns us for what we do. And he made rude comments about the things we have for sale. Said they were inappropriate—said they were evil! Who is he to say such things?”
“I –“ Frank begins to speak in his own defense.
“Take him away!” the judge says. “Settle this yourselves. It’s nothing but your word against his and not of enough importance for me to concern myself with.”
I wonder if the man is even a true judge. How did they manage to schedule a hearing for us before him in such a short amount of time?
We leave the building and I think, with relief, that we can now surely make our way back to the car and leave this place. But the burly man who spoke against Frank suddenly has him by the collar and propels him backward with rapid punches. Frank holds up his arms in front of his face in an effort to protect himself. And then the man takes a knife out of his pocket and slits Frank’s throat. I gasp in horror. He glares at me. “You’re next,” he says, and lunges toward me but someone stops him, pulling him away from me. In fact, everyone soon leaves, until I am left alone. There is no one in sight at all, except of course, Frank’s inert body on the ground.
I stare at Frank’s body and move toward it slowly. He obviously is dead. I feel such a sadness, as well as an overwhelming sense of being very alone. I have known this man for only a very short time, and yet--.
I want to take Frank’s body with me, bury it somewhere, but I know I haven’t much time before someone will stop me. They may accuse me of killing Frank, or the same thing may happen to me that happened to my companion. So I run through the town, and manage to make it back to the car without anyone stopping me. I plan to drive back to Frank’s body, to put it in the car. And I drive a little ways in that direction, peering worriedly out my window. The young woman who had come up to me while I was in the cage is walking from the sidewalk toward me. I allow my car to idle and wait for her to reach me. She stops at my window and knocks on it. I roll down my window. “I will see that he is buried,” she says. “You must go on your way.” And then she smiles. “I hope to join you before too long. And I hope to bring some others with me.”
I thank her and drive quickly through town, very glad to be on my way again, but stunned by what I’ve just experienced.
On the far edge of town, a man stands on the street corner, waving his arms. It is obvious that he wants me to stop. I really don’t want to do so. But I do pull over and roll down my window, as I had earlier, with the young woman. “May I come with you?” he asks eagerly.
I frown. “You know where I’m going and you want to come with me?”
“Yes, yes, and I want to come now! My sister intends to wait, but I can’t. She hopes to come later, she says, but I hope to join you this second!”
Of course, I agree.
“Someone followed me,” he says. He points to a tree and I make out the outline of a person standing behind it. “I think he wants to go with you too.”
“Do you want to get him?” I ask.
My new companion goes to the tree and soon returns with another young man. The two of them climb into the car, the second newcomer in the backseat.
“My name is Rory,” the man next to me says.
From the back, I don’t hear anything.
“Harris,” I say, by way of introducing myself. “John Harris.”
“I’m not from the town you just came through,” announces the man in the backseat.
“No?” I say, intending next to ask him where he is from, but he speaks before I have the chance.
“I am a stranger to both of you,” he says. “I have many wealthy family members and I am fairly well-to-do myself. I am married to a woman from a good family, though she disagrees with me philosophically in a number of areas. The point though, is that we appear to be the same—or should I say, we have the same ideas with regards to what appearances should be.”
“That sounds—awkward,” I say. “It must have been rather frustrating to have different standards for appearances and reality.”
“I like to go with the tide,” he says.
“But many times you must go against the tide,” I say, “in order to hold to the truth.”
“I may do as I like,” says he.
“I hope that you’re not going with us just for the adventure of it, because of some sort of fad,” I say. “Or because you think it looks like a good idea. This will require real commitment.” How much commitment I had only just really understood myself. Frank had shown me. “I think you should go home if you have anything else in mind,” I say.
“You are too rigid,” he says. “Why won’t you even listen to others’ opinions? How can you be so sure you are right? Look, I don’t think I want to go with you after all. I don’t want to sign my life away, if that’s what you say it takes. Will you take me back?”
I do as he asks. I haven’t gotten very far anyway. After we leave him, Rory and I drive on in silence for quite a while. We soon come to a sign for a silver mine. I have no interest in stopping to see it, but Rory asks if we might. He seems rather interested.
I think about the town we’ve just come from, where I had wanted to stop, and the disastrous consequences of that choice. It seems to me that to stop now might be to repeat the mistake. But something good had come of stopping. Rory had joined me and others might come from there later, because of the way Frank and I had conducted ourselves there and the things we’d said.
Rory really seems to want to go to the place. “The sign says you can dig for treasure.”
“It’s a scam,” I say.
“How do you know?” he asks.
I just look at him as I would my boys if they were misbehaving.
He shrugs. “I guess it’s not that big of a deal. If you don’t think we should stop—“
“Let’s keep going,” I say.
We stop for a quick supper at a fast food restaurant a little later. We can hear every word of the conversation in the booth next to ours.
“I can’t believe we did that! I just can’t!” one woman says to the other.
“I know, I know,” says the other. “They charged us so much just to get into the stupid place and then for shovels and sieves. How dumb could we be. After all that, of course we don’t find anything. Just a total loss.”
“Completely,” the first agrees.
When Rory and I leave the restaurant, he looks at me repentantly. “They went to the mine. I’m sure glad we didn’t.”
I agree but don’t say anything.
At the campsite where we stop for the night, I feel rather stunned by everything that has transpired today. As I put up the tent, I keep thinking about Frank. After all, this is or I guess, was, his tent. How sad that he’ll never again use it. I’m sure he’s happy to have me use it, but I almost feel that I am stealing. I wish so much he were still with me.

The sun filters through the tent and wakes me the next morning. I think it’s pretty early and I still feel quite tired. I almost roll over to go back to sleep, but then I realize Rory’s not in the tent with me. I know we’re very near our goal. We’ve got to be just a very short distance from our destination. Surely he didn’t try to head on out on foot. I quickly get up and pack the tent. Just as I close the trunk, Rory walks toward me. I hadn’t seen him coming.
He’s holding a map. “We’re taking this little back road,” he says, “but we ought to be on this highway, don’t you think? Doesn’t it look like it will get us where we need to go faster? I always take the highway or interstate if I can. Didn’t you start out on this road?”
I indicate that I did, but was told it was the wrong way.
“Well, I think it looks like a better route at this point,” Rory says. “Don’t you even want to try it?”
I really don’t, but Rory offers to drive and let me sleep. I think about how close we must be to our destination and how nice it would be to reach it even sooner than I’d anticipated and I relent.
Rory drives a ways on the highway and then takes an exit and stops at a fancy restaurant. “I want to bury you a nice breakfast,” he says.
The prices are reasonable and the food smells amazing, so we order almost every breakfast item on the menu. I order a ham and cheese omelet with hash browns, Rory orders pancakes and a plate of biscuits and gravy he says the two of us can share. We both order orange juice to drink and Rory gets hot cocoa with his, while I opt for coffee. When we polish all that off, Rory orders a cinnamon roll and tries to get me to eat some of it, but I’m just too full.
I feel so sleepy.
Rory climbs into the car behind the steering wheel and starts up the engine, before he turns to me. “Wow, you look wiped,” he says. “You know, I feel really tired too. I didn’t sleep much last night. I’ve never done well sleeping on the ground. I could really really use a nap before we keep going. Should I just pull the car over somewhere so we can sleep a while?”
There’s a hotel right next to the restaurant. I contemplate paying for a room, but then decide it’s really not worth it for a short nap, though a real bed sounds like heaven at the moment. Rory notices me looking at the hotel. “Do you want to—“
“No,” I say quickly. “Let’s just take a nap in the car here for a bit.”
He nods and we both put our seats back as far as they’ll go.

When I awake, the sun is high in the sky and I feel so warm.
I nudge Rory. “Get up,” I say.
He groans, stretches, and slowly opens his eyes. He blinks sleepily and yawns. “Hey,” he finally says, “I’m hungry again.”
I kind of am too, but I don’t say anything.
Rory looks at me eagerly. “Let’s go back in and have some lunch,” he says. “This place has amazing food.”
We eat a lunch even better than our breakfast was. I have ribs and onion rings. Rory has a huge grilled chicken pasta dish with cheesy garlic bread on the side. Both of our meals come with salads, a mix of fresh greens, smothered in dressing, croutons, and bacon bits. For dessert, we have cheesecake covered with chocolate and caramel syrups and pecans. Also, we have side dishes of fruit: sweet, succulent fresh pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, and peaches. They taste so good I don’t think sugar could improve their taste a bit. The added sweetness would be redundant in an artificial and overdone way.
The water we have with our meal is so clear, cool, and even somewhat sweet to the taste that I know I’ve never drunk anything like it before. Neither of us wishes to try anything else to drink, though they are a number of other beverages on the menu.
After we eat our lunch, we feel sleepy again. Rory suggests we walk for a bit in a park nearby. He thinks that walking will wake us up, refresh us, or at least one of us, enough for us to get back on the road, with someone awake and alert behind the wheel.
The park is lovely with many trees and a small, trickling stream running between them. Small children play in the stream, giggling and splashing one another. Wildflowers grow on either side of it in abundance. I feel that we have come to some sort of paradise. I wish to stay here and not go on. I sink down on a park bench and watch the children play, forgetting everything else.
I don’t realize Rory isn’t sitting beside me until he grabs my hand and wrenches me to my feet. “Let’s go,” he says.
“All right,” I mumble, “you drive.”

In the car, I sink back into my seat and close my eyes while Rory drives down the highway. He pulls over in just a few minutes. My eyes fly open. He’s stopped on the side of the road.
I look at him questioningly. “I’m sleepy,” he says. “I just can’t keep my eyes open to drive. You drive.”
“Oh, bother,” I say. “I’ll drive in a few minutes. Let’s just sleep a while here first though, okay? A short nap, is all.”

I hear a rapping and awake. It’s dark and I’m inside the rental car. I see someone outside the driver’s side of the car, where Rory is. Is it Rory? What is he doing outside of the car? I quickly realize it can’t be Rory, since he’s sitting in the car next to me, still behind the steering wheel. The rapping doesn’t seem to be disturbing him.
The person knocking on the window becomes more insistent and as the knocking grows louder, Rory does move, shifting his body and opening his eyes.
“Roll the window down,” I say.
Rory blinks and looks at me. I repeat myself and he rolls down the window.
A large, hairy man bends over, pushing his face close to Rory’s. “You’re trespassing on my property,” he says.
“I-I didn’t know,” Rory says. He and I both try to look behind the man. It is dark and this looks like an empty field alongside the road. I don’t see any sort of house in sight where this man could possibly live.
“We’ll be on our way,” I say.
“No you won’t,” he says. “You’re coming with me.”
“What?” I notice Rory look toward the keys in the ignition, but even as he looks that direction, the man outside the car reaches his hand in and grabs the keys. They are in his possession in a shorter time than I would have thought possible. I find myself truly amazed at his speed, especially with his being such a big man. He defies the assumption that the bigger something is the less agile it must be.
“I want you to come with me,” the man says.
Now, I certainly have my doubts about going with him. But I’m not sure what else we can do. After all, he does have our keys, and furthermore, I can’t imagine that he will do anything awful to us. He probably does want to call the police and turn us into them or something, but he’s probably done this sort of thing before, I would imagine, as he certainly seems like the sort to do so, and they’ll probably recognized his accusations for what they are and be willing to listen to our side of the story too. Of course, it would be so much easier if he’d just let us leave, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to be an option.
Rory and I sit in the car and stare at the man while he repeats his demand. He kicks the side of the car. “Come on!”
Rory scoots over toward me and both of us get out on my side of the door. I can understand Rory’s reluctance to get close to the man. He seems like quite the monster to us right now, in both his size and his unkind, unreasonable, and controlling demands.
He comes toward us and takes a hold of each us, pushing us forward.
He takes us through the woods. We’re scratched and slapped by branches.
In a clearing sits a log house which he walks directly toward. It’s a very big house and the logs, though I don’t recognize the type of tree, appear to be immense, whole tree trunks.
He pushes the screen door and the wood door open and shoves us down some cement stairs. Both of us fall down them. His force is too much to contend with, especially taken off guard. He and his home are both seemingly larger than life, at least that which we’ve generally come into contact with. He slams a door closed at the top of the stairs.
We sit stunned and hurting on the floor at the foot of the stairs. It is dark and damp.
I assume we’re in his basement and an unfinished one. The floor beneath me, anyway, feels like cold cement. I stand and feel along the side of the wall for a light switch. I can’t find one.
“Rory,” I whisper, “are you all right?”
He moans. I don’t think that’s a good sign.
I wonder what kind of mess we’re in.
I can hear our captor upstairs talking to a woman. His voice is as loud as his person and very low. It carries well and it’s not difficult to understand what he’s saying. “I’ve caught a couple trespassers,” he says.
She asks him something—I can tell by the tone of her voice, though I can’t understand what exactly it is that she says.
He says only “no,” which doesn’t really give me much of a clue about what she said.
She speaks more, saying quite a bit actually. It seems to me that she’s given him advice. I hope that she’s encouraging him to let us go. Surely a woman would be more compassionate and hopefully, she understands how ridiculous and wrong it is to treat us this way. He could be arrested for kidnapping or for assault, I think.
After a bit, it is quiet. I hear no doors slam or car start, so it’s hard to believe that they have gone anywhere, but it’s almost as hard to believe that they are still here. Rory and I hardly move for what seems to me like a long time, though my watch indicates it’s only been close to an hour.
Then I slowly walk up the stairs. I manage to make very little noise. I try the door at the top of the stairs, and just as I’d suspected, it’s locked. I’d had a feeling that this man was rather insane and might have something strange and terrible in mind for us.
Meanwhile, Rory finds a light. He manages to grasp hold of a hanging string attached to a light bulb, and when he pulls it, a small, sickly light, but nonetheless a light, comes on.
It doesn’t reveal much. We are definitely in a basement. The floor, walls, ceiling are cement. There is no carpet. There are no windows. There is no furniture. And there are no doors, except, of course, the one at the top of the stairs. It’s just one large room.
The sight is more discouraging that the darkness was. At least when it was dark, we could hope that light might reveal some way out.
“How are we ever going to get out of here?” Rory asks me when I tell him the door is locked.
He runs to the top of the stairs to try the door for himself and then he pounds on it and yells for someone to let him out. I tense, afraid of what our captor might do to him. I also hope that someone might be in hearing who will help us. But nothing happens. There is no sign that Rory has been heard. When he falls silent, it is just as quiet as it was before he started making such a racket. If anything, it seems even quieter.
After a bit, Rory says to me, “Let’s both throw our weight against it.”
We both start at the bottom of the stairs, run up them, and throw ourselves against the door, but it doesn’t budge. Rory tries several more times on his own and then tries to stick something in between the lock and the door. He tries a credit card, keys. He tries his keys in the door as well. We simply can’t manage to get out of our prison.

It’s a long night. In the morning, I wake immediately when I hear a key turn in the lock.
But I’m not sure if I should be happy or worried.
I quickly find out.

Our captor walks heavily down the stairs and when he reaches me at the bottom, he pulls me to my feet, up the stairs, and out the door. I find myself hoping desperately that he’s going to let me go now. But he picks up a long stick leaning against the wall of his log house by the door, and he starts to hit me with it, over and over. I try to fight against him and manage to kick his leg, but as a result, he puts more force behind his blows, hitting me harder and harder. It hurts so badly I can hardly think. I try to run away from him but he comes after me, hitting me, hitting me. My clothes are ripped and I am bleeding. I fall to my knees, unable to continue standing, let alone trying to defend myself or get away from this man. He keeps beating me. I fall unconscious.
When I again am aware, I find I’ve been returned to the dark, damp basement. I’m lying on the floor and it feels so cold beneath me. I am conscious almost immediately of overwhelming pain. I feel sore, much like I’ve felt sore in the past after a hard day at work or a day after a tough workout, but this is that pain times at least four, and it is not quite the same kind of pain. I hardly know how to describe it. Never before or since have I been beaten like that. I hear Rory moaning softly near me. I am convinced our captor, perhaps captors, are completely insane. I have yet to see the woman I heard the other night. Perhaps she doesn’t live here. Perhaps she isn’t aware of the terrible nature of our situation. Or perhaps she is entirely a figment of my imagination. Surely she would help us if she existed and knew what was happening to us. But maybe she does know; maybe she’s even egging him on. What a horrible thought.
“Rory,” I call softly.
“Oh!!” He seems unable to do anything but moan.
I decide not to push him to speak. I don’t have enough energy myself for the task.
We lie there for quite a long time, part of it conscious and part of it not, whether because we slept or passed out from time to time because of the pain, I don’t know, but I do eventually hear the voice of our captor again. It is not as loud nor as clear this time as last, though I am just able to make out a few of his words, something about us, that we are still alive. I try to decide if he is decided by this fact. I wonder if he intends to kill us.
Not too long after, he comes down the stairs and stands not far from me. I can just make out his silhouette. I’m in too much pain to move, though I do think that I should try to get away, as he very well may beat me again. I try to make myself roll away from him. It hurts so badly, I can’t suppress a horrible outcry of pain. The agony in my own voice surprises me.
“I’m not going to let you leave,” he says. “You might as well make away with yourself. There is no reason for you to continue living only to experience more of this pain.”
“Let us go!” I hear Rory say.
“Why you!” He rushes toward Rory with his fists up, but then seems to decide Rory isn’t a worthy enough adversary. He backs away from him, shaking his head.
“I have no intentions of letting you go,” he says, “ever.”
After he leaves us, Rory and I do not speak for quite a while, but then I say, “Do you believe him?”
“Yes, I do,” Rory says. “I wish I could kill myself almost, if I didn’t know it would be murder to do so. I don’t think it’s any less wrong for me to kill myself than to kill someone else. And I’m not so sure that what happens after life to people who kill themselves—“
“Well, I don’t think it’s any worse to kill oneself than to be killed! I’d rather save myself from having someone else kill me. I just don’t know how I’d go about killing myself. I’m in too much pain! Looks like he intends to beat us to death or let us starve, in which case, I probably have more strength now than I ever will have. Maybe I could hang myself from the light fixture.” Part of me is appalled by my ranting, but another part of me is wholeheartedly behind it. I do think I’m making some sense.
“Don’t you think we might be able to escape?” Rory asks. “Maybe he’ll forget to lock the door sometime or maybe he’ll die or just decide to let us go.”
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be alive or if I’ll have enough strength to get away if I do have the opportunity.”
“Can’t you at least wait a while and see what happens? We haven’t been here very long.”
I agree with Rory to wait before doing anything drastic. It’s far easier to just lie on the floor anyway.
Sometime later that day the man comes down again. I think he is checking to see if we’re still alive, or if we’ve taken his advice and killed ourselves.
He kicks me and screams at me. I think I must have passed out again, because when I’m again aware, he is gone.
Again, I say something to Rory about killing myself.
Rory again tells me to bear up.

In the morning, our captor comes down and leads us both out. He holds us up, one of us on either side of him. He takes us to an outbuilding and in it he shows us human bones in a pile in the far back corner. He keeps them under a bit of tarp. Now, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man is more than mad; he is deadly. He tells us, as I’d already suspected, that these are the bones of others who’ve trespassed on his property as we did and who met similar repayment for their deed, imprisoned in his basement with nothing to eat or drink.
Then he takes us back down to the basement.
After he leaves us, something amazing occurs to me. I have a little key in my pocket. It was in my pants’ pocket when I received them from the sisters. I had meant to ask them about it, but had soon forgot, what with the other things I’d put in my pocket, including my key ring with all my keys on it. I’d even attached this key to the ring. It was a very old key and I’d thought it a possibility that it didn’t work for anything anymore. But now I have the feeling that this key will let us out of this prison. I tell Rory and expect him to think me as much of a lunatic as the man who holds us captive. But Rory says, “That is very good news. Try it now, for goodness’ sake.”
I do so, and wondrously, the key turns, the door opens with ease, and we are able to leave, though we’re not able to move very quickly. We try to get away from the place as fast as we can, stumbling through the trees in the direction of our car. There’s a bit of a path. Just as we reach the car, I hear someone crashing through the path we just followed. And I recognize the voice of our captor yelling at us, but for once, I can’t at all make out what he’s saying.
Rory starts up the car and pulls out onto the highway. Not until we’ve driven a couple miles, do I really begin to feel safe and incredibly hungry. We stop at a restaurant at the foot of a mountain with a gorgeous waterfall running down it. The food here is as better than what we had at the last restaurant and more affordable. After we finish our meal, on the other side of the mountain, we see a great expanse of fenced in land containing beautiful horses and a man on a horse just outside the fence. He’s wearing a cowboy hat. Rory stops the car and calls to him, “Whose land is this?” he asks.
As we had thought, we have reached our destination. The land belongs to the man we seek and his city, the hub of the ranches, is just a few miles away. The cowboy tells us that on the other side of the mountain is a dark, smoky cave from which you can hear terrible screams. “But not on this side,” he says. “This side is where you want to be. Straight ahead on the road to the city. Before long you’ll be on a ranch of your own—his, given to you.”
Just a little ways down the road from the cowboy, we see someone walking in the same direction we’re driving. He stops when he sees us, and waves his arms at us. Rory doesn’t want to stop, but I feel sorry for the man, obviously a hitchhiker, and I pull over. He’s an older man, gaunt and gray. He thanks us profusely for giving him a ride. He tells us almost immediately that he’s going where we’re going and he’s so glad to almost be there. “Think I could about walk the rest of the way,” he says. “But sure am glad to not have to!”
Rory tells him about Rory’s own experiences and I decide my young friend’s glad now that we picked up this older man. But then the older man says, “You know, I think I’m a pretty good person. I think they’ll be happy to have me because of that. I think that’s why I’m doing this, you know? I think that’s probably why you all are too.”
“You think we’re good people? That that’s why we have this hope?” Rory snorts and starts to list all the terrible things he’s done in his life. I stop him quickly.
“I don’t think goodness is what gives us this opportunity or why we came here,” I say. “In fact, I’d have to say it’s just the opposite. It’s that lack of goodness in ourselves that’s made us seek out something and someone else.”
“Hmm,” says the man. “Well, I guess that’s your idea and the other’s mine.” He changes the subject and tells us the story of a man he knows who’s been robbed. He was an older man also, and his robbers were very young, new gang members, and from the man’s account about as scared of him and of what they thought they had to do to be accepted as he was of them.
“Sounds like these people who robbed him were rather cowardly,” Rory says. “Why didn’t your friend fight them off?”
“He’s a very old man,” was all the hitchhiker says in response to Rory’s question. “But they didn’t take everything from him. They left him with some silly baubles he prized—a gold money clip he’d picked up somewhere and a fancy pocket watch he carried on him at all times. These items were worth something, but apparently not to these kids. They saw them but didn’t take them from my friend. He had quite a bit of money on him though, and that robbery hurt him, but he wouldn’t sell those things of his. He was on his way here, just like you all. He thought a lot like you all, I think, though maybe he didn’t have quite so much faith. I guess he made it by now. I haven’t heard from him in a long time.”
I tell the hitchhiker about my friend Ed.
While I am talking, he points to a little paved road that has a sign posted near it. “That’s the name of the town,” he says.
I take the road and soon find myself following its twists and turns until I know I must have lost my way. Discouraged and tired, I stop the car, pulling off the road.
Someone knocks on my window. It’s a man in a cowboy hat. He reminds me of the man who gave me my note book, though I don’t think he’s the same person. I roll down my window and look at him warily. The last time someone knocked on the window it was our captor from the log house, the man who almost killed us.
“Why did you follow that sign?” the cowboy asks me. He opens my unlocked door in order to get closer to me. “The cowboy you stopped and talked to gave you directions and you’ve been told more than once to drive toward the sun, stay on the road, go neither to the right or the left.” He sighs. “Don’t take what looks like a quicker or easier way.” He points to his truck which he’s parked a ways ahead of our vehicle. “Follow me.”
When he slams the door, I feel that I’ve been hit on the face, though the door makes no actual physical contact with me. I feel rebuked and deserving of the rebuke. I feel the rebuke covers far more than what I’ve just done in being so inattentive but other thoughtless and also unkind, selfish acts on my part. I think of all the ways in which I’ve failed my family.
In spite of the terrible sense of rebuke I feel, I also feel, wonderfully, that I’m forgiven, that through the great sorrow and desire to change I have because of what I’ve done, I’m now able to experience a new life.
“He was really rude,” the hitchhiker says.
“No, he wasn’t,” I say and I can tell from the look of sadness and wonder on Rory’s face that he feels as I do. “He was kind. He told me to follow him,” I say. Rory nods. The mirror’s reflection of the old man in the backseat reveals to me his astonished and somewhat frustrated expression.
“I’m starting to think you’re crazy and I might be better off on my own,” the old man says. “How can you be sure it’s the right thing to do to follow him?”
“Would you like me to let you out of the car?” I ask.
“Well,” he says.
I pull out behind the truck.
“I’ve many good thoughts to keep myself company,” he says.
“Thoughts of what?” asks Rory, a bit derisively, I think, though I don’t blame him.
“I desire to be at an end in this journey,” he says. “I look forward to it. My heart comforts me that my future will be good,” he says.
“Why is that?” Rory asks.
“Because my heart is good, of course,” he says.
“The condition of the heart is determined by our thoughts,” I say, ”and none of us have solely good thoughts.”
“I will never believe my heart is bad,” says the older man.
“To recognize that indeed your heart is bad would be your one good thought,” Rory says. He laughs, taking a little bit of the sting out of his words, but it is still obvious that he means what he is saying.
“I don’t understand you. At least, I know that what you believe is not what I believe. I wish to be back on my own now. I’m tired of your company.”
So I stop the car and let him get out.
We follow the truck a bit farther and then I see the outskirts of the city.
As we near the city, I see that the streets of it glisten in the light. I wonder what they are made of that they do this. In fact it seems as if the entire city is lit up like a diamond, sparkling, gleaming. I feel so eager to be inside it that I’m overwhelmed by my desire.
The rich, verdant orchards and vineyards on the outskirts of the city are amazing. I’m struck by how close they are to the city itself. Rory keeps sticking his head out the window and asking people who the orchard belongs to or who owns all this land, this city. Again and again, they tell us the name of the man we are seeking—the ranch owner, more specifically, the owner of all the ranches, and apparently much more besides. The workers offer us a taste of their grapes or apples. I slow and they hand us the most delicious of fruit through the window. It is lovely in color, perfect in size and shape, and tastes so sweet and good, I know of no way to adequately describe it. I would have to invent new words and as people would not know them, they would also fail to convey the extent of the delight we experienced.
I feel like I’m dreaming and will soon wake up.
Rory and I talk eagerly and wonderingly to each other. We can’t help but speculate on what is to come, as everything we’ve already seen is so wonderful.
As I drive into the city, I have difficult seeing what is in front of me. The light of the city is blinding. I cannot possibly look directly into it.
Two men walking alongside the road see us and wave. I start to pull over but one shakes his head and points directly in front of me. He motions with his hand as if to urge me to continue going forward. Of course, Rory and I had no intention to do anything else. But something about his motion seems to serve as a warning as well. I glance at Rory, intending to ask him what he thinks these men are trying to communicate to us, but before I speak to him, I look back out my window and can not see them any more.
“They disappeared,” Rory says.
“They walked behind some trees,” I say.
Rory doesn’t say anything more but I sense that he still is taking his version of what happened over mine, and then he grabs the steering wheel and says, “Stop!”
I see an especially bright light directly in front of the car and slam on my brakes.
.”What is it?” I say.
“It’s water,” says Rory, “a river, I think. And it looks like the bridge is out.”
“There has to be another road,” I say.
“There is no other way to get where we are going,” Rory says. “I’m certain.”
I know that he is right. We’ve already taken too many off roads. We must stay on the path. Does that mean we have to walk into this water? Will it miraculously disappear as we walk into it? Or are we supposed to swim across? I’m not a very good swimmer. I wonder if we might be able to take a boat.
Rory walks immediately toward the water. Soon it is up to his waist. “Come on,” he calls to me.
I step in as well, but in a few steps I feel that I am sinking, that the water is enveloping me. I hold my breath waiting for it to cover my head. But then I wonder wildly what I’m doing. I feel certain that I will drown. I let my breath go in a rush and cry out, “Help me! I’m sinking!”
“No, you’re not,” Rory says. He laughs. How can he laugh at my distress like that? “I feel the bottom. I’m standing on it.
There’s no way this water is that shallow, I think. I feel that I am sinking, that I can’t keep my head above it. Rory comes toward me and helps to hold me up. “You’re fine,” he says. “It’s a little slippery, but not bad. Let yourself get a good foothold.”
But not until we almost reach the other side do I feel secure. I feel that I am not alone and that it is not merely Rory who is with me. I feel another presence as well.
On the bank on the other side of the river, the two men we saw before on the road stand, smiling at us. “Welcome, welcome,” they say.
We climb at hill together to the city center. The air is sweet and the beauty of the place is amazing, overwhelming, impossible to truly describe. Every where we see people in white with bright, shining faces and they radiate a joy so true, so intimate, I would think it would embarrass me to look deeply into those sparkling eyes but I can’t help but do so. I feel so drawn and furthermore, I feel no embarrassment, whatsoever.
“When we will see him and receive our place?” Rory asks eagerly.
“Soon,” one of the men tells him. “Very soon. We’re almost there. And in the future, a while from now, you will have a position of authority with him. Not equal to his, but still great. You will have a voice in his judgment of those who have wronged him and you, and after he finishes that judgment you will return to the city with him and then on to your ranch. But now you have much to do, much to enjoy.”
“I can’t wait,” I say.
Rory smiles eagerly.
A group of people head directly toward us. “We’ve come for you,” one of them calls and laughs a bright laugh of sheer joy. “We’re taking you to the grandest supper you’ve ever had with the grandest person ever in existence! One who is a person and yet more than one.”
These people surround us on ever side, some talking, some laughing, some singing. They are so happy, so carefree, and so genuine in their joy. They smile at Rory and me and engage us in conversation, introducing themselves to us and waiting for us to tell who we are, what brought us here, asking questions about our interests.
I can’t remember the last time someone paid so much attention to me, unless it was my grandma when I was a little boy and just about her favorite person on the planet or maybe when my wife and I first started dating seriously and were enamored with each other. I can’t think of any similar situation since then.
I ask someone about the brilliance of the place. I can’t see any exterior lighting that could possibly be responsible for it. The two men who were with us have disappeared. A young woman near me answers my question by not answering it. “I don’t know exactly,” she says. “It’s a natural light.”
Someone hands us certificates. I don’t even look at mine to see what it is. I know it means I have a place and will soon be allowed to go to it. I look a little more closely at the person who gave them to us as he looks familiar to me. “Ed!” I say, as soon as I realize it’s him. He looks so much better than I remember him as looking. He looks leaner, stronger, his eyes brighter, his haircut better, and I have a feeling he’s not so accident prone now as I knew him to be.
“Good to see you!” he says to me. He gives me a hug. “Can’t wait to get caught up with what’s been going on with you. My brother Mike and the rest of my family—do you know anything about them?”
“I might,” Rory says.
Ed looks at him. “You look familiar too,” he says.
“We’ve met, but only once, I think,” Rory says.
Though I want to keep talking to Ed, someone else hands us a change of clothes and directs us into a huge building. “You’d better go,” Ed says. “We’ll talk later.”
The building is something like one of the towering office buildings I had occasionally done some electrical work for, usually in conjunction with other electricians. Once inside it, we follow our guide down a long corridor to a room with several mirrors and plush carpeting. When Rory and I are alone in the room, we quickly change clothes. Our elegant white attire is crisp and perfect. Mine is slacks and a button-down top.
Through the window I see the older man who hitchhiked with us for a while. He stands just outside of the building. The doormen shake their heads, refusing to let him in. I can tell by their gestures that they are asking him if he has a certificate. He apparently doesn’t have one. He pleads a bit longer and then walks away.
When we leave the room, the man who brought us to it greets us. I ask him about the older man.
“He took a boat across the river and came in at a non-entrance,” is the reply. “He did not get here legitimately. I’m not sure what he was trying to do. A friend of yours?”
I shake my head negatively. “An acquaintance,” I say. “What will become of him?”
“He has a completely opposite destiny from yours in store.”
Down the hall way, we precede through huge gilded double doors to a conference room with padded chairs, the same thick carpet as was in the room we changed in, and a chandelier that winks and sparkles and puts off more light than any such fixture rationally could. Our guide leads us through the room to a much smaller room on the other side of it. In this little study, with tall book shelves on two walls, a viny plant in the one window and a globe near it, a man sits behind a huge marble desk. I’ve never seen anything like it before. His back is to us. When he turns to look at us, I find I cannot meet his eyes. They are far too bright to look into.
“Look at me, please,” he says. “I wish to speak with you.” I glance at Rory and see he’s having the same problem I am. His eyes are also lowered as though he too finds it impossible to hold eye contact with this man.
I look up and at the man’s face. This time, although it is difficult, I make myself keep my eyes on him. And as I continue to look at him, it becomes easier and easier to do so. And as I look at him, a warmth fills me and a sense of peace and well-being such as I have never before known.
“Welcome,” he says simply. “Tomorrow we’ll ride out to your ranches together.” He smiles and I am stunned again by the brightness of his face. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Thank you for making it possible,” Rory says, and I wish I’d been the one to say it.
As it is, I feel a bit like a parrot, as I simply repeat Rory. “Thank you,” I say.
“Yes,” he says, “you are welcome.”
When we leave the study, as we walk back through the conference room, our guide says to us, “You’ve no idea how much he’s done to make this possible. When he first started giving people land, some of the folks who heard about what he was doing thought it was wrong, that he should make these people work for what they received. He said he was doing the work for them, but they got together a group that believed as they did and came after him. They lynched him.”
“What?” Rory says. “Who came to his rescue?”
“His father,” the man said simply. “But not until the event had already taken place.”
Startled, I say, “You mean he was—“
“Here are your rooms for the night,” says our guide. He opens two doors right next to each other, each leading to magnificent sweets with a table in each heavily laden with food. “The food is for snacking,” he says. “We eat lightly as we wait for the great banquet.”
I smile. If this is lightly, I can’t wait to see what all we’ll have at the banquet. I bet the scene from Beauty and the Beast with the Be My Guest song doesn’t even compare. The movie makes me think of my sons; though it’s not of course their favorite Disney movie being rather “girly,” it is one I saw with them. How I wish they were with me. I miss them and Jeanne so much. I’d missed them on my way here too, but now more than ever. How they would enjoy this. How grand it would be to share it with them.
Rory seems to feel much the way I do. He and I talk for a while before we go to bed and he shares with me how he wishes he’d tried harder to get his friends and family to come with him.
It was obvious to me just from the little time we talked to Ed that he feels as we do. I wish I knew were he was so I could find him and take the chance to visit with him.
The only encouraging thing I can think of to say to Rory is, “Maybe they will come yet. Maybe any day now, we’ll see them.”

Life Under the Sun

Life Under the Sun

Saturday, February 26, 2011

I-II Chronicles

A Good Example?

Superhero Elijah

To Solomon

Geisler's Answer to The Shack

Pilgrim: A Retelling of Pilgrim's Progress

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