This is the Place by Carolyn Howard Johnson

This is the Place

A N O V E L B Y

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

There has been a renewed interest in "This Is the Place" since it was published in 2001 just before the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City Utah. Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints is on trial in Utah for rape. "Big Love" has been a two-year HBO hit. And Mitt Romney, a Mormon who calls Utah his Zion, is running for the Republican presidential nomination. One way to learn about how this unique culture affects these current events is to read work by an author who was raised there, knows the culture intimately, does not depend on research only.

Utah 1959

Prologue

Sky Eccles

History

There is a family story. It is told that when my Gram Harriet left her career and piano behind at her grandparent's house in Salt Lake City to come to Holladay to live with her mother, she left the breadth and breath of her life. Brock, her husband, had been determined to do what was impossible--to replace that life piece by piece. He finally settled on replacing the piano; perhaps he saw that he couldn't do all the rest for her, or perhaps he saw that the piano was, after all, the key segment of her soul's puzzle.

“Everyone knows Harriet's stubborn as an ox and blue-blooded and high strung as a thoroughbred,” Brock said, “So it's no onus on me if I happen to say so.” That's the way the first entry in Brock Eccles' diary read and that's the way, I, Skylar Eccles, recorded it on the day my cousin Rachel and I read it. We were in the fourth and fifth grades respectively and knew better but did it anyway.

The diary was lying next to one written by Brock's father, Hart, but that reading waited for another time that never came for Hart's diary has been lost. Only snippets survive, handed down verbally, father to son, like the tales of Odysseus. I don't have my original copy of the notes I took on that day either, flushed with the thrill of being sneaky. I memorized that first line so Rachel and I could quote it and laugh when Gram Harriet was on a tirade. Everyone-- even a couple of giggling grade schoolers--knew Grandpa Brock spoke God's truth when he said that. The rest of the story I have to remember the way my imagination recorded it and tell it much like the bards of Homer's day, with as much care with the truths of legend as possible:

Gram Harriet had been teaching piano to the neighborhood children at the old upright in the old Cottonwood Ward, the same one she had played when she first came to Brock's attention. All the brothers and sisters at the ward had agreed that Wednesdays the piano would not be scheduled for any church activity so that Harriet could teach their children. The very young children--some were as young as three-- brought small change for their lessons. Everyone knew that Gram Harriet could teach more children if she had a piano in her home and that there was one she loved and had left behind at the Cavewell home.

Grandmother Cavewell died of an attack of emphysema just seven days after Thanksgiving the year that piano appeared in Gram Harriet's living room. She had done a fine job of planning how to break through the wall of bitter pride that Harriet had built around herself. She had done it with trepidation, and without a notion that it would be her last gift to her stubborn, redheaded granddaughter or that her own death would somehow tie the whole package into a presentation Harriet would not be able to refuse.

After her grandmother's death Harriet let herself into the ward chapel with a quiet key. She played Morning Song until her fingers felt tired and her body was so numb she wasn't sure she could make the walk back home under the cloud-tainted moon. It was too late for any other amends and if music couldn't reach out to souls removed from earth then, in Harriet's view, prayer could do no better.

Not long after that Brock, along with his younger brother, Joseph, and his cousin, Stue, brought Harriet's piano from Salt Lake City. Because Stue's daughter took lessons from Harriet, Brock had asked Stue to help. He also asked him because, in Brock's words, he was as “big as a mastodon.”

All three believed that Franklin's old model A truck, one of the few engined vehicles in Holladay at the time, wouldn't be large enough to lay the piano flat. They used the old family buckboard because they considered a prone position essential to getting the instrument to Holladay, a small farming community outside the city. It was this process of getting the instrument up from the Cavewell home on the floor of the valley to the Eccles property on the foothills that most concerned Brock.

There was a wariness among the perpetrators of this piano scam. Joseph, Brock's youngest sibling, was sure Harriet would dig in her heels and not accept it. He wasn't crazy about turning the buckboard around and hauling it back; it wasn't, after all, a bag of coal or a bushel of apples.

“What can she do once the thing is in the parlor?”

“Well, she kin chop it to smithereens like she did the parlor wall.” Stue said.

“Or she c-can refuse to play until her temper flares down--it may take a couple of decades,” Joseph said..

“Well, its all been fixed so it will work” Brock said handing up blankets and quilts and ropes that would keep the piano intact on the way home.

“Sure you have...You've got her r-r-right under your thumb.” Joseph held up his pinkie with a grin that reflected his brother's own.

“Nope, you watch. Crystal got instructions from Grandmother Cavewell before she died. You just wait!”

When the buckboard came lumbering down the driveway Crystal, Brock's mother, was in the yard. “Did you remember Grandpa's note? For heaven's sake, be careful! She'll notice if there's a scratch. Be careful of the top. It'll fly open and spring its hinges. Goodness, you men. It's an instrument, remember?”

“Okay, Ma. We brought it all the way from the Avenues. I think we can get it through the yard. If you'll quit fussing, we can do the last twenty feet before Harriet gets home from teaching!”

“Yeah, you should be herding that chorus of kids. Are they going to be here before Harriet?”

When Harriet walked up the front path ten children tugged at her skirts.

“We're having a party.”

“Garret has cookies for us.”

“Come, look what we have to do our lessons on.”

The young musicians' parents stood proudly by in the parlor and the dining room and even on the porch. Most of them carried baked goods they had brought for the surprise.

There stood the piano, burnished wood, with sheets of music piled near the little circular piano seat. Harley had polished the front part--all he could get to before the guests started to arrive--with almond oil. One child at a time came forward as Garret called them and played their week's lesson “with feeling, Mrs. Eccles, just like you want me to!” Stue's daughter, Olivia, said, as a formal introduction, when it was her turn.

Harriet didn't speak. It was quiet even with the music and the children milling about. One child at a time climbed up on the adjustable stool that was twirled by Crystal to the proper height for each, with no applause in between.

Olivia played “The Birthday Party” a three-note extravaganza, right hand only, from John Thompson's Beginning Primer and then went back to her milk and cookies. Todd, Harriet and Brock's younger son, did a minuet. He was so young he was pudgy but it was still apparent that he had inherited his mother's skeletal fingers and her innate rhythm. Afterwards he hung on his father's pant leg and watched his father reloop the rope that had held the piano as the next child played.

When everyone had performed, including Bernice who was showing some promise for classical music, Harriet had been given a long, long time to think. “Well, I just think we'll have to have these busybody men make a proper piano bench,” she sniffed, “One that will hold a teacher and a student.”

“I guess that's one job I'd better not put off.” Brock said. As he walked into the kitchen to get more gingersnaps for the children he leaned toward Joseph and whispered, “Notice that even when we win, we lose?”

When the guests left, Brock said, “Harriet, there's a note from Grandfather Cavewell down near the pedals. Sometimes the best part of a gift is the card.”

The note was rolled tightly, lodged between the left pedal and the piano front panel.

“Dear Harriet,

Your grandmother and I kept your piano as long as we could to give your anger time to fester down.

Remember, this was a gift to you from your grandmother when you were a child. I can't give it to you again for it is already yours. Your grandmother always said, 'Love lasts about as long as you'll let it.' I guess that has special meaning now that she's gone.

Grandpa Cavewell”

Chapter 1

Sky Eccles

The Search

Sky Eccles sat in the old '49 Buick convertible she shared with her mother, its fenders riveted with salt decay from the Utah roads. “Old but cute,” Sky thought, patting the steering wheel rhythmically out of affection and nervousness. Rusted down to a washed matte-maroon, she still wished for something less distinguishable right now. Something less tank-like with less presence. Something less dilapidated that would blend in. Something with a top that would allow her to hide out. She sat in silence looking at her grandparents' house at the edge of Holladay, a small farming community turning suburb at the edge of Salt Lake City. She felt exposed even with shadows of lilac shrubs and cottonwood trees shuttering the late afternoon light. She was to deliver sheet music from Eldridge Music Store to her grandmother but she didn't want to go in. She also didn't want to turn around and go back home.

Located at what was once the dead-end of Meander Lane, the little house had been built by her grandfather, Brock Eccles, and her polygamist great-grandfather, Hart Eccles. The house and land was in Sky's soul, both sweet and scary, like a sugar apple with a dark spot in its core.

Sky watched her younger cousins, small versions of herself and the other cousins she had grown up with. Women in Utah gave birth young and their years of fecundity continued undiminished, like peas being skimmed from a pod, quicker and easier after the first pea burst from its protective sheath. Some of these youngsters were nearly two decades younger than Sky but were still of the same generational slot.

These first cousins were running in and out of the screen door that slammed against their rumps with each misjudged exit. The dog, a mutt called Old Black Joe with remnants of a herder in him, sometimes took the slam for them if he didn't negotiate the swing just right. This game of tag would continue as twilight gloom shrouded their figures into small screeching ghosts: In the back, through the house, out the front. There would be no adult interference and the children would wind down on their own like tired tops.

There was one major difference between this group of cousins and the one that played the same game in the 40s; there was no Sky in this one. Both groups would have looked the same. Kids of all ages. Hair shot through with gold streaks of sun. Eyes that reflected the pool of English ancestry. But these children were all Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, as they prefer to be called. Back in Sky's time what couldn't be seen by the eye surely tainted the atmosphere of any family gathering; Sky was not one of them.

It was certainly not this difference in religion that prevented Sky from opening the car door and walking up the lawn, for that difference, though usually unspoken and unacknowledged, had been one she had lived with for nearly nineteen years now. It was that this day she carried a sprouting decision she must make along with the Mozart and Debussy she must deliver. This errand, in this place, with these people could influence that decision.

“Sky. Sky. Sky-ay-ay!” One cousin began the chant; the others joined. The car had been spotted. A multitude of cousins with fjord-blue eyes abandoned their game. Clinging to her skirt and hanging from her elbows and arms like puppets, they escorted her in a rush along the path they had been taking. Old Joe nipped at her heels herding her along in the smell of children wet with excited play. Gram Harriet--Sky was the only grandchild to call her anything other than Gram or Grandma Eccles--was in the kitchen telling fortunes from the vaults of coffee cups to the parents of the crew of youngsters trailing behind her. No one had turned on the bare bulb hanging above the table. No one wanted to break the spell. Gram Harry's silver hair was traced with telltale red streaks. It gathered the dim, evening light in the room just as the strength of her presence had gathered the youngest four of her eight children to her. No one saw the wrinkles that shredded a once smooth expanse on her forehead or the eyelids laden with the gravity of time; they would only hear her prediction of vacations to come and of changes to be made in life.

Great-Grandmother Crystal sat with her hand on Gram Harriet's arm, like a supportive appendage. There was a triangular layout to the scene like Rembrandt would have used, support against support, spotted with strong light and shadow. The great-grandmother had quietly occupied an upstairs bedroom for the whole of Gram Harriet and Gramps' marriage in spite of Harriet's original insistence that she stay in the one off the kitchen that she and Hart had occupied until his death.

“Hart's and my room is now yours and Brock's room. You two are now heads of this household,” Crystal had said to the young couple and it had been told on many occasions since, out of gratitude and, perhaps, as a reminder.

Great Grandma Crystal was tiny, less than five feet, shrunken with osteoporosis. Her frail body was like a bunch of snap beans, showing all the under-structures of her being in ridges and lumps. Gram Harriet mostly said, when Crystal wasn't around, that Crystal had been the best mother-in-law a body could ask for. She also said, in some disconnected conversations scattered across the decades, that this home never seemed like her own for it had been Crystal's before her and was Crystal's still.

Now Grandma Crystal's head shook in tiny patterns of negativity as each fortune was told. Sky was not sure whether this minute disapproval was from a stroke she had suffered or because she did not believe a whit in the proceedings. Once Sky had asked during a similar fortune telling tryst, “What do you think, Sweet Crystal?” Crystal had smiled and tilted her head toward her daughter-in-law. “Harriet is doing the fortune telling here. I am along for the show.” Her voice had been like the reedy sounds from a Peruvian pipe; there was a non-committal wavering between octaves, a strength of purpose in the notes.

As Sky entered the kitchen with dog and children clustered about her, Aunt Leah was watching her cup being prepared. The sound of the upside down china cup chimed against the china saucer in the twilight. A personal future secretly appeared in the splotches of coffee grounds that appeared in the over-turned cup away from the eyes of all present. Everyone waited for Gram to pronounce what the grounds had revealed. This process was so ingrained that no one even considered that telling fortunes with coffee grounds was not the way it was usually done. All were aware that both tea and coffee were forbidden by The Church. All were willing to break the rules for a good eye-opening jolt of joe or the convivial projection of the future in this dim old kitchen.

Only Gram Harriet could decipher the messages in the cups and because this one was not to her liking, she swirled the last drops of coffee to rearrange the patterns a bit before she began.

“I see angry energy unfolding in your cup,” Grandma said to Leah, the youngest daughter. When the children saw the secret rites, they screeched for their fortunes, too, leaving Leah with the Delphic message to be unraveled later. Teaspoons full of spent grounds were put into Postum, a dark grain brew that Mormons often substituted for caffeine-ridden coffee. The children never commented on the difference. They just gulped the brew non-stop and then each of their cups was subjected to the wizardry of triple turnings amid childish awe like the whispers of evensong. Everyone knew that this was a family secret. No one mentioned the coffee outside this twilight kitchen because it was forbidden for the devout. No one was clear about whether the fortunes were also not to be mentioned so they weren't.

Gramps Eccles entered the kitchen from the back porch. “Couldn't help notice the angelic chorus of cousins. That must mean my eldest grandchild is here, Peter Pan to the hoard of Eccles grandchildren.” He put his hand on Sky's hair, an action only slightly different from the way he would put his hand on the top of her head when she was much shorter. Then his eyes narrowed in careful control. It was the same look he got when candles were put on the dinner table by Gram, who had at one time belonged to the Church of England. It was the same squint he once aimed at Sky's mother when she forgot and wore a tiny gold cross around her neck to Sunday dinner.

Many people in Gramps' beloved church felt a keen distrust of anything that pretended to be magical or even symbolic for such things smacked of false gods and the occult. It was not because they were not superstitious for they were, but not in a knock-on-wood or don't-walk-under-a-ladder way. They were a practical people, reserved, conservative. But there was a subtle awareness of spirits among many of them. An angel, Moroni, had been instrumental in the founding of the Mormon Church. Many also felt the presence, even in these times, of the Three Nephites who were Jesus' American followers in the Book of Mormon. It recounted the American continent's tribal and redemptive history. These Nephites were blessed with eternal, mortal life--sort of spiritual guardians. They roamed among their Mormon lambs, giving aid where needed and admonishing those who strayed. Spirits were the fiber of the unseen. They possessed power and were not to be taken lightly.

Once, when Sky and her cousins were in their early teens, Grandfather Brock Eccles had caught them moving the mysterious puck around an Ouiji board in search of information about which little boy at school might return their affection when Gramps thumped out their evil with such force that the children and board scattered into different quarters of the room. The anger and fear on Gramps face had been enough to discourage playing the game of evil ever again.

Now Sky reached up to give his bulk a hug and plant kisses on cheeks that were concave from ill-fitting false teeth, just as she had then. He wore a felt fedora-style hat, grubby from handling with hands rich with loam. A wide belt held old dress pants in place around his girth and a plaid shirt revealed the telltale ridges of the garments he wore underneath.

A kind of tricot underwear, garments were a spiritual staple that stayed with him always, in sleep and wakefulness, a part of his religion, a part of his essence like the smell of his skin rich with the mustiness of the soil he worked. He shared this symbol at the intimate level of marriage with Gram Harry and with all “The Church” members, as all people of Utah called the Mormons as if it was the only church that existed anywhere about. He wore them with a shared secret wisdom that tied them together like macramé knots that those who were not of The Church could never unpuzzle.

“I suppose you'll want your fortune, Sky,” Aunt Leah's voice suggested in the gloom of the room.

“No. I'll pass. I have Gram Harry's music for her lessons next week. I picked them up just before the store closed. Lucky the news room at the Tribune wasn't busy so I could get across the street by six.” Sky was relieved to have something else to talk about. What if Gram could foretell about Archer in the depth of the coffee grounds, patterns of Chinese dragons or fearsome grizzlies that never seemed to have any relationship at all to what Gram saw there? And what if Gram could probe out the story that she was unwilling to reveal on this night, either from the debris in the cup or by the way Sky carried her eyes.

“So, did Gram's fortunes send everybody on a long weekend to Bear Lake?” Sky asked looking at the flat, shadowed masks of three aunts and one uncle framed by a sheet of darkening backlight from the window. They were arranged like an audience on the opposite side of the table from Gram Harry and Crystal. The faces of the grandmothers gathered up peach tint from the trifling rays reflected off the clouds and waning sun. It was as if they had been spotted for a stage effect, leaving the rest of the room dark and undelineated.

“Jeez. How about a little light on this party?” Sky reached over to turn on the dangling light above the kitchen table. Seven pairs of eyes squinted at her in the globe's unprotected glare. The light had been a mistake.

Gram took Sky's hand. “So, what's up, Little Love? Trouble at work?” That would be Gram's immediate take. She hated that Sky worked for the liberal Salt Lake Tribune rather than The Church-owned Deseret News. Actually, she hated that Sky was a writer.

“You have musical talent,” Harriet had said when Sky had been chosen as an editor of her high school newspaper and stopped coming for Gram's music instruction Tuesdays after school. Sky hadn't answered, the better to avoid Gram's disapproval, the inevitable report of bad behavior to her parents. Gram Harriet was not one to let go that easily. “Music runs in your veins.” She put her hand on Sky's arm. A breeze had moved the Puritan lace curtain and the sheet music as if they were partners in a dance. Sky had watched the paper float to the floor.

“Gram Harry, try to understand. Words are my music. You love the notes, I love the lyrics.” Sky took her grandmother's hand in hers, could feel the fan of ribs in the back of her hand, her veins slide beneath the pressure of her fingers. Gram withdrew her hand to brace the music against a second breath of wind. Sky knew it was futile then. And now, as a writer working for the Tribune, she had poured gasoline into the fire of Gram's disapproval. In the state of Utah the newspaper a person read was an indicator of just who one was, what one thought. When--not if--they wanted to know what religion you were they would ask what ward--church house-- you belonged to or where your father had gone on a mission or a dozen other seemingly noninvasive questions that would require an admission that you were--or weren't--Mormon. So, “Deseret News or Salt Lake Tribune?” was a vital gauge of religious and moral status. Sky was blessed tired of it, one more indicator of how people--she--was different, one more way to box up a soul and bind it with a tie of twine.

Sky remembered to answer through the haze of memories. “No, Gram. No trouble at work. Maybe just tired.”

“Don't put Mom off!” Aunt Leah said. She was the one that most resembled Gram Harriet, tall with hips that looked as if they had been abbreviated with an ax, no width to them and no depth, either--so flat at the back that it must have hurt to sit. She was the only other redhead in the family besides Sky and Harriet and the only one with a disposition that matched Harriet's as well.

“It never works anyway,” she said. “Mom's like a weevil. She'll delve until you tell her what she wants to know or thinks you should know and if you don't tell her she'll spoon feed it to you 'til you get it right.” There was a pause. A boundary overstepped. But Gram laughed and general nervous laughter followed. The children fell back into the darkness of the yard that obliterated their presence like scrim falling on a darkening stage. The spotlight glared above the table.

“So what is it, Sky?” Gram shoved a cup and saucer at her. “You never turned down a fortune before. You always had an inherited sense that inner wisdom was the real stuff of life, even if the rest of the world lifts an eyebrow at it. Let's find out what's in these patterns of life.”

“Oh, Gramps is here and he doesn't like it much.” Sky's eyes felt bright, like fever. The bulb hung bare over the heads of the family.

“I don't know how you can stand it,” Gramps said. “This plague runs in the family. You've got a father who can tell where the pheasants are hiding and how the world will be in any given decade and a grandmother who reads cups.”

Gram Harry's eyes didn't move. She could watch silence.

“O.K. Gram. You're right. Tell you what. I'll come back over the weekend for a nice chat, and a nice fortune and maybe I'll bring along another surprise.” Cups and saucers cleared from the table with five pairs of hands, the rattles and clanks loud. The chair legs grated into position under the table, leaving the ghosts of themselves in rounded dents in the linoleum. Five sets of helping hands. Five hearts that had been scrutinized in their own time by Gram Harry's x-ray vision.

Only the two grandmothers didn't move. Harriet looked back into the pottery mug she preferred, twirling and tipping the droplets of coffee, pushing and reforming the grounds along its sides. “Ah, I see a very young man coming into my life,” she said, “and he is holding the hand of my namesake, Skylar Harriet, my own maiden name turned upside down. I see her hair and heart flaming as mine once did.”

There was an invisible sigh in the room's clatter that Sky recognized as her own, a wisp of sound, resigned like the color gray. “His name is Archer, Gram, Archer Benson. But I'm not sure I will be bringing him to you. I haven't made up my mind.”

“Benson,” Gram breathed the name like the whisper of bellows. “A good Mormon name.” Gramps stopped scraping chairs into position. Leah stopped rinsing cups. The ivory soap bar in her hand slipped away in a spurt like an exclamation point.

“Yes, Gram. But that's scary for me. The Benson family is just plain scary.”

“What's so scary? Benson is no stronger name around here than Eccles, maybe more 'Salt Lake' than 'Holladay' but certainly no better.” Gram Harriet sniffed.

Gram had missed the point of Sky's fear altogether. Sky did not tremble at entering a marriage with Archer as an equal. It was that it would be necessary for her, in order to take vows as an equal, to keep herself whole, unrearranged at the whim of religion or convenience. That meant equal but different. Equal but a painful reminder among the doubtful. Unequal and a painful sorrow for her own soul among the righteous. That she was a half-breed--half Mormon and half Protestant--clung to her like a blue aura that infected every Mormon room she entered, every Mormon heart that knew her. That she had denied Mormonism and chosen Protestantism was, for them, like an untended blister.

Sky's mother was an example of what it might be like to marry a Mormon and keep your spirituality intact because she hadn't converted. Gram Harriet was an example of what it might be like to marry a Mormon and borrow his spiritual identity for your own. No alternative was ideal. Two generations of women who had married away from their original strain.

Sky turned to look at Great-Grandmother Crystal's eyes. They could not be very much different from what they might have been a half century ago, the same ghost-eyes carried in the vestigial memory of the entire Eccles clan. Make that three generations. This woman lived her religion, denying the parts that pricked, caressing the parts that succored in times of darkness. Three different women. Three different generations. Was it possible for Sky to learn from these faces instead of having to learn the hard way, from experience? Maybe, but not now. Not with an audience.

Sky had come to soak up the vibrations of this house and its people, to ground her feet in the roots here, not to explain why she was frightened. Given some time Sky could sort out what she wanted from the fears of what marriage to Archer would mean for them both and for her family.

“Gram, give me three or four days,” Sky echoed her thoughts, “and I'll have the equipment to make a decision. Maybe it will be what you see in those grounds.”

As Sky left she heard Gram's voice filter through the screen door, dusky and hushed. “If it's a Benson wedding, it will be a temple wedding, Crystal. And I'll get to help her prepare for it.” Gram hadn't missed what made this decision frightening for Sky after all. It was just that, in her eagerness to reclaim Sky's spirit for Mormonism, she had got it backwards.

------

Learn more about This is the Place at www.howtodoitfrugally or from the 32 five-star reviews on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1588513521

One Smooth Stone

Name of book - One Smooth Stone By Marcia Lee Laycock Publisher - Castle Quay Books Distributor - Augsburg Fortress Books Author's website - www.vinemarc.com Buy the book at www.castlequaybooks.com

First Chapter:

  Alex Donnelly was alone. That’s how he wanted it. He told himself
that’s how he liked it. That was a lie.
 He twisted the throttle on the boat motor to the off position,
leaned back, pulled his floppy-brimmed river hat off his head and
turned his face toward the sun. The silted water hissed against the
bottom and sides of the boat. A breeze tussled his thick black hair.
He heard a hawk whistle from a high cliff and squinted to watch it
plummet from its perch.
 Closing his eyes, he slumped low. He would let the current take him
home. He had all day and there wasn’t anyone waiting for him, except
his dogs. At least they’d welcome him, if only in anticipation of food.
The hawk whistled again and Alex opened his eyes, letting them fill
with the sweeping green hills and wide brown Yukon River. As the boat
caught and circled in a whirlpool he dipped his hand into the cold flow.
  Two minutes, he’d been told. If he fell in – or jumped – it would take
two minutes for this river to kill him. He knew it was true because it
had almost happened. He’d been looking for the cabin where he now
lived, had beached at the mouth of the wrong creek and decided to wade to
the other side to search for a trail. Half way across he realized he was
in trouble. It was deeper than he’d thought and his legs were giving
out. Then the bottom dropped off completely and he’d had to swim. He
barely made it to the shore in time; he couldn’t stand when he got there.
His legs were useless for several minutes, even though the sun was high
and hot that day. He remembered he’d shivered for two days.
 His eyes caught the gray shifting of mist in the rift of a small
valley far ahead as thick clouds spilled their burden of moisture down
toward the river. He could smell it as the wind brought the fragrance of
poplar toward him. The trees on the banks seemed to turn their leaves
toward it. He pulled his hat back on and shrugged into an old slicker. As
the rain came toward him he started the motor and steered the boat
closer to shore. He knew a wind could come up strong enough to keep him at
a stand-still. He snorted as he thought about that. It was the story
of his life right now. Standing still. But at least he wasn’t running
anymore. He wondered how long it would last.
 Just before the rain hit him a sudden shifting of light curved over
the hills in a faint rainbow. God’s promise. Funny how he always
thought that when he saw a rainbow. Someone somewhere must have said it to
him. He pulled his hat down and cut the motor again, to listen, as the
first softness of rain touched him. Everything around him seemed to
whisper. He breathed deeply and almost smiled. Out here a person could
almost want to believe in God and promises. Almost.

August 19, 2003, Vancouver, British Columbia

  Inspector Stan Sorensen slumped into the driver’s seat of his
unmarked car. Another case closed. It was a good feeling, but as his eyes
absently scanned the neighborhood he knew it would not last. There was
always another case, always more people who’d been hurt, more creeps to
chase down. He sighed. There was a time when he’d thrived on it, but
retirement was going to feel so good. He flipped open his notebook and
wrote one more detail down, then reached for the ignition. His hand froze
as his eyes rested on a small house across the street. Much like all the
others, it had seen better days. What was it that made him …
Sorensen’s eyes narrowed as the memory surfaced. A young girl’s face - dark eyes
that held such longing it hurt him to even remember. He sat up
straight. That case had never been closed. He reached for his notebook again
and made another note. He hated loose ends.

****

   August 20th, 2003, twenty miles downstream from Dawson City, on the
Yukon River.
   Alex heard the boat but couldn’t see it. He took his binoculars down
from a nail on the wall and walked to the bank. Making sure he was
screened by the low slung branches of a spruce tree, he scanned upriver.
He caught the long outboard, skimming with the current about a mile
down. Adjusting the focus, he peered at the two people crouched in the
back. He knew the one with his hand on the motor - the son of the mechanic
in town. Alex couldn’t remember his name. Probably hired himself out to
the man in the suit.
  The suit was hunched into himself, a large leather briefcase
clutched in his arms, his knees drawn up, head down. His tie escaped now and
then, flapping into the wind with sudden urgency until he caught it and
tucked it in again. The sight of a man in a suit on the river was so
out of context, Alex kept watching until the boat veered and headed
directly toward him. He lowered the binoculars and squinted as it beached
just below his cabin. Within seconds the men were out of sight but he
knew they were scrambling up the embankment. They’d missed the trail. He
considered slipping into the bush and pretending not to be there, but
his curiosity got the better of him. He went back into the cabin and
waited.
  As the two men breached the top of the slope, Alex's dogs erupted
into high-pitched howls. The suit hesitated, peered around and seeing the
animals were chained, approached the cabin. Alex stepped back from the
window and waited for the knock. When he opened the door, he took in
several things at once: the man looked young, no older than Alex
himself, but smaller in stature. He was wiping his face with a handkerchief,
but wasn't breathing hard from the climb. His hair was the color of sand
and short, spiked at the front, reminding Alex of a small porcupine
he'd seen that week. The man's eyes weren't visible behind dark
sunglasses but Alex had the feeling he was being sized up in return.
"Mr. Donnelly? Alexander Donnelly?"
  Alex kept one hand on the door latch, shoved one hand into his jeans
pocket and willed his heart to stop racing. "Who's asking?"
  The man yelled over the barking. "I'm George Bronsky, of Adams,
Ferrington, Lithgow and Bolt, attorneys at law, Seattle."
  When Alex did not respond, the lawyer slipped his sunglasses off.
"You're a hard man to track down, Mr. Donnelly."
  The dogs continued their cacophony. Alex just stared. George Bronsky
stared back. Alex blinked first. He stepped out, turned his head and
hollered, "Lay down!" When the barking subsided, he turned back to the
lawyer. "State your business, Mr. Bronsky."
  "I have some good news for you." He glanced past Alex to the
interior of the cabin and took a step. "If you'll allow me..."
  Alex didn't move. "I said state your business."
  Bronsky shifted the brief case and slipped the glasses into his
pocket. His head turned slightly to the boy standing behind him. "I suggest
we speak in private."
  Alex tilted his head toward the mechanic’s son. "Mind waiting in the
boat? This won't take long."
  The boy shrugged and turned away.
  The lawyer cleared his throat again and lifted his chin. "I’m
pleased to inform you that you are the recipient of an inheritance, Mr.
Donnelly. Quite a substantial inheritance, in fact, and my law firm would
very much like to..."
  "You've got the wrong guy." Alex turned his back on the man and
stepped into the cabin.
  The lawyer stepped forward. "You just turned twenty-one, isn't that
right?"
  Alex glanced back. “So?”
  "So, this sum has been held in trust until your twenty-first
birthday, which ...”
  “My parents died when I was a baby.”
   The lawyer nodded. “I know.” Digging a sheet out of the briefcase,
he kept his eyes on Alex. “You were born in Seattle. Your birthday was
three weeks ago." He glanced at the paper. “July thirtieth, wasn't it?”
Alex hesitated for another moment, then turned and pushed the door
wide. "That much I know," he said. "Watch your head."
  Bronsky ducked under the doorframe and entered the dim room. Alex
watched him take it in: the rough wood table, one chair and the small bed
in the back corner; the large worn chair by the barrel stove in the
other corner; the wall lined with shelves holding his few items of
clothing and a number of books. Alex was suddenly aware of the smell – wood
smoke with a strong overlay of tobacco, sweat and animal musk.
 The lawyer placed the briefcase on the table, flipped it open and
began removing papers. "I'll need to see a birth certificate, then we'll
need your signature to certify that you've been notified. You'll have
to come into our offices to sign the rest of the papers and be sure to
bring a bank account number where the funds can be deposited." Alex felt
his neck stiffen when Bronsky lifted his head and looked at him.
"Uh... you do have a bank account?"
 "Yeah, I have a bank account." He took a step toward the table.
 "This inheritance –where’d it come from?"
 Bronsky blinked. “Your parents …”
 Alex shook his head. “If my parents left me money, why didn’t I know
about it before now? You sure you’ve got the right guy?”
 "Well," Bronsky read from the paper in his hand, "are you Alexander
Gabriel Donnelly, born Alexander Gabriel Perrin, six forty-five a.m.,
July thirtieth, 1982 at Virginia Mason Hospital, Seattle, Washington? Is
that you?"
 Alex cocked his head. "I know I was born in Seattle, but..."
 "Mother's name, Janis Marie Perrin, father's name Thomas Allan
Perrin?"
 "I never knew their names." Alex's voice was so low, the lawyer
leaned toward him, holding out the sheet of paper.
 Alex took it, stared at it, scratched his dark beard. "This can't be
me." He laid the page on the table.
 Bronsky sighed. "Do you have a birth certificate here?"
 Alex stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “No.”
 The lawyer raised his eyebrows. "You were adopted in 1985?”
 "Yeah, when I was three.
 Their names were Christopher and Anna Donnelly?
 Alex nodded. “They died when I was five.”
 "That fits. Do you have any documents from the adoption?"
 "No.”
 Bronsky pursed his lips. "Child welfare in Vancouver must still have
them. We'll have to verify everything, of course, but..." George
smiled. "Congratulations, Mr. Donnelly. I think it's safe to say you're
about to inherit one million U.S. dollars."
 Alex's head jerked up. "What?"
 Bronsky chuckled. "I thought that might get your attention. It
appears your biological parents were rather wealthy. I believe the original
amount was considerably less, but some good investments were made and
interest does accumulate over twenty-one years."
 Alex shook his head. A hank of black hair fell into his eyes. He
pushed it away. "But that's... that doesn't make any sense."
 "No, it doesn't." Bronsky chuckled again, and reached into his
briefcase. "It makes dollars. Lots of them." He handed Alex another sheet of
paper, then pointed to a line on the bottom. "Now, if you'll sign
here, please, I'd like to get back to Dawson as soon as possible."
Alex stared at the paper. He took the pen the lawyer held out, but
did not move to sign it.
 Bronsky straightened. “Go ahead and read it for yourself. All it
says is that you’ve been informed.”
 Alex picked it up and moved toward the window. He read it twice,
then signed.
 Bronsky handed him a business card. "Here's our office address, our
phone number and my extension. Call if you need anything. We'll be glad
to help." The lawyer shifted the flap of his briefcase until it closed
with the soft click of the magnetic clasp. "Uh, it would be expedient
if you could arrange to come to Seattle as soon as possible, Mr.
Donnelly. We've been looking for you for over six months and we'd really like
to close this file."
 Alex stared at the card.
 "Mr. Donnelly?"
 He lifted his head, and frowned. "I've never been to Seattle. Been
back, I mean."
 "We'd be happy to make all the arrangements. How soon can you be
ready to leave?"
 “I don't know.” Alex looked down at the paper again. “Maybe
tomorrow.”
 "Tomorrow?"
 Alex shrugged off the surprise in the lawyer’s voice. "Maybe."
 "Oh. Well, fine, that would be fine. I'll see if I can make the
arrangements this afternoon, then. I guess that means we could travel
together, at least to Whitehorse, if there's a seat on the plane. It leaves
at 1:15, so we should meet somewhere, say at eleven o'clock? I'm
staying at the Downtown Hotel."
 "I'll have to arrange something for my dogs. If I can go, I'll be at
the Downtown at eleven."
 "Good. I'll see you then."

 Alex heard the boat motor roar as it pulled away from the shore, and
fought the current  upstream. He looked around him. For a moment
nothing seemed familiar, nothing seemed real. He picked up the papers the
lawyer had left, scanned them, then tried to read more carefully. The
legalese got in the way. Tossing them down, he ran a hand through his
tangle of black hair and sighed. The last thing he wanted was to go
anywhere near a city, but... He pulled the papers toward him again and slid a
callused finger over the smooth words. Janis Marie Perrin. Thomas Allan
Perrin.
 Slumped in the chair, Alex let his mind search into corners he had
closed off long ago. He was a small boy sitting on a bench, his thin
fingers outlining initials carved into the wooden arm. Swinging his legs
over the edge, he made sure they didn't bump and make  noise as he
listened to the voices of strangers coming through the half open door.
 "This one must have a black cloud. Twice in five years! Who'd wanna
be number three?" The man's voice sounded tired.
 "He's a cute little guy, though.” The woman's softer voice was
hopeful. “Maybe they'll find somebody willing to take him."
 "A five year old? Not very likely." The man sighed. "Well, he's off
to Clareshome for now. They can hold him and deal with the paperwork
while he goes into the system. I'm swamped. There's some legal stuff
here, from his biological parents. Perkins. That's the name, right?"
 "Something like that. His legal name is Donnelly now. Wonder how
many more times it'll change before he grows up?"
 Alex saw himself, a small boy being led down a long hallway by the
clutching hand of a stranger.
 He stood, hunched his shoulders against the memories that slipped
like slivers of ice through his veins, and turned away from the table.
That was then, he thought. Stay in today, Donnelly. Stay in today. He
took a long-handled axe down from beside the door and went outside. The
cold bite of late August air hit him like a slap but he breathed it in
and deliberately turned his thoughts toward preparations for winter. His
wood supply was getting low. There wasn't much left to split, but he
fell into it with an easy, familiar rhythm. It was the kind of work he
loved - physical and mindless.
 But now his mind would not stop. Questions swirled one upon another
like small whirlwinds stirring up everything in their path. And in the
midst of them, two names glowed like red-hot brands. Two names he had
always wondered about.
 He stopped, pulled his T-shirt off and used it to wipe the sweat
from his face and the back of his neck. His hand brushed the scar that ran
down his neck from the base of his right ear. He tilted his head as
though to hide it and dropped the hand quickly.
 Resting the axe against the chopping block, Alex left the wood where
it lay and went back into the cabin. He stared again at the legal
papers. He was tempted to toss them into the stove. He didn't need this. He
didn't want it. It was too dangerous to go back. But what if ...
 He picked up the documents. It was then he realized his hands had
started to shake.

Murder By Association by Gary Starta

MURDER BY ASSOCIATION

By Gary Starta

Chapter One

Peter did not know his attraction to Debbie had become fatal. That's probably because he did not realize a serial killer had factored into his love equation. The laughter and easy banter Peter and Debbie had enjoyed at a singles function, a few days earlier had fueled the rage of a serial killer named John.

John, the Serial Killer, figured there was only one way to solve this equation. Subtraction.

John was introduced to Debbie two days ago at the latest singles rage: speed dating. Why spend an entire night waiting for a bad date to end when only a few minutes were needed to determine if there would be chemistry or not? This philosophy had not worked to the advantage of John, who believed eight minutes was just not enough time to bare his soul to a partner. How could he ever condense the last thirty-three years of his life--not to mention six murders--in that amount of time? It didn't take Debbie the full eight minutes to realize John was not going to be her next soul mate--let alone her next dinner mate.

The last three minutes of the introduction were spent in uncomfortable silence. The moderator of the event then rang a bell indicating their time was up. This meant that the single men at the event would now trade their seats in order to meet the next woman.

Women participants remained seated at tables while male candidates visited their tables in clockwise rotation based upon the letters of the alphabet. John was now going to table M and Peter would now enjoy the company of the gorgeous brunette named Debbie at table L. John barely spoke to the red-headed woman seated at table M. He was too busy watching Debbie's face light up at table L. Debbie bared a smile, revealing her pearly white teeth and sparkling brown eyes for Peter. Unconsciously, Debbie's left hand began to stroke the curly ends of her lustrous black hair. John translated this as sexual interest for Peter.

John knew Debbie and Peter would be hooking up. It was highly likely they had marked their attendance ballots to request each other's phone number. John realized there was only an infinitesimal chance, that Debbie had requested his number. He decided not to request hers, in a futile effort to maintain his self-esteem. After all, why should he allow the speed-dating moderator the satisfaction of mocking him?

John would have to go to plan B if he was to save face.

After the introduction process had been completed, John decided he would get to know the man who had stepped between him and his latest love interest. After a few minutes of small talk, John was able to establish that Peter was a divorced software manager who lived in the Boston suburb of Needham, Massachusetts. The killer also learned that Peter did not work on Tuesdays. John had all the information he needed. He left the small Framingham bar aptly called Whirlpools, as a tidal wave of emotions once again threatened to drown the last vestige of sanity in him.

John's emotions eventually ebbed. His ranting gave in to a mental numbness. He utilized this state to immerse himself in work for the next five days. When Tuesday morning finally arrived, John picked up his cell to call out sick. A nauseous feeling in his stomach and dizziness in his head, reminded him of his next appointment with death.

Maneuvering his Lexus IS 300 through the usual heavy traffic on Route 1, John had time to reflect on his past murders. “They all had it coming.” He rationalized in reference to his six victims. All of his previous murders were a necessary means to an end. The four women and two men he had killed painfully confirmed his distaste for a crazy little thing called love. John hated the part of himself that kept seeking salvation in this despised emotion. But he was hardwired just like every other heterosexual male, to keep swimming upstream to land the big catch. John insanely reasoned that one day he would meet the love of his life. She would be an unattainable type of woman: A princess who would never criticize or hurt him. He fantasized that the two of them would one day look back at his present distressed life and laugh. The chances that John would find a woman who could chuckle about his murder sprees were quite slim however. This did not bode well for the good people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Utilizing his GPS system, John had little trouble locating Peter's house. It was located among a row of peach colored townhouses bordering a cul-de-sac. John found it ironic that the housing development ended in a dead end. Deep down, he knew love was a dead end for him and anybody foolish enough to stand in his way of finding it. The men he had killed all had won favor with the women he lusted for. The women he had killed fell into two categories. The deceased females were either objects of his unrequited love, or they had unintentionally branded him as a loser with what he interpreted as a scornful look or disinterested gaze.

John did not realize his hypocrisy. He was quick to judge as well, handing out death sentences to those who had offended him. At the same time, he despised what speed dating symbolized about today's society: Instant gratification and disposable people. He also hated those who behaved in a detached manner from society. Every time a stranger passed him by without so much as a nod or salutation, anger welled in the pit of his gut. This anger dug into him like a nail. Yet, he could do little about the matter but seethe in silence. He simply did not have enough time to punish these people. There were just too many of them. An entire populace had been trained to de-value their fellow human beings. Most of them couldn't be bothered with acknowledging their fellow man or woman. John eventually aired his sentiments to the nameless, faceless beings he spoke to in computer chat rooms. But nobody seemed to identify with John―the Serial Killer. His chat room buddies told him he was simply a victim of low self-esteem and to “get over it.” John refused to get over it. He was determined to make his tormentors experience the same psychosis he was experiencing. In John's mind, he wasn't really out of touch of reality―everybody else was.

John coasted his vehicle quietly into Peter's neighborhood and popped out of it without a noise. He approached his victim from behind, not so much to surprise him, but to assume a state of detachment. John feigned aloofness, coldly calculating his kill as if he were a snake and Peter were a mouse. But in John's heart, rage surged in tidal wave proportion. Each step towards Peter made John's heart thud like a drum.

Washing his car in the driveway with headphones on, Peter made an easy target. John scooped up a towel lying on the grass, grabbed the software manager around the waist, and shoved the chamois cloth into his mouth. From out of the corner of his eye, Peter thought he saw a neighbor moving a curtain in her bedroom window. He prayed the neighbor would alert the police of his plight. He couldn't scream to warn her though. The towel muffled his cries. The manager could feel the hot sting of tears in his eyes. Guilt welled up in him. He had terminated many people over the years. He wondered if the man behind him was a victim of his downsizing. Peter recalled the catch phrases he had used on his former employees: “Don't take it personal; it's only business.” But right now, things were beginning to get very personal for Peter the software manager. The catchphrase haunted him as he began to travel life's last superhighway―to his final destination, six feet underneath shade trees with an upside down view of one pricey headstone. John ignored Peter's tears. He plunged a knife into his heart. John waited for Peter to die so he could carve a symbol onto his stomach. The etching would depict a crude drawing, a line drawn across a heart in a diagonal fashion. Both the line and the heart were enclosed within a circle among a canvas of flesh. Investigators would later remark that the symbol reminded them of the wordless signs, which prohibited such vices as smoking. Detectives would also find a tarot card at the scene portraying the Three of Swords.

But crime scene investigators would find little else. John had used the water hose to effectively eradicate any boot prints or tire tracks he may have left. He had successfully subtracted Peter from the equation.

Website: garystarta.com

Buy book at: http://eternalpress.com.au/

I Can't Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult by Wendy J Duncan

Title of Book: I Can't Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult

Author: Wendy J. Duncan

Prologue

“I can't hear God's voice anymore!” I shouted. “Your voice has gotten too loud!” I screamed at Ole Anthony, the leader of the Trinity Foundation, as I ran out of the room.

Earlier that morning in Bible study, Ole had chastised my boyfriend, Doug, for wanting to marry me. This was not the first time that Ole had rebuked Doug on the subject of marriage. It had happened on numerous occasions during the seven years we had been dating, but, for some reason, on that spring day of 2000, I could no longer tolerate Ole's manipulation. The proverbial light came on.

“Everything is perfect,” Ole had told Doug. “If you think things are not as they should be, you are in a state of sin. You have to deal with your problem of self, Doug. Your evil self rises every time you think something should be different from the way that it is. God abhors self. Whenever your mind tells you that something should be different, you must ask God to forgive you. This has massive implications, as it destroys your propensity to want to be in control. You must repent from your sinful self-seeking immediately.” In this manner, Ole persisted in deriding and verbally thrashing Doug for his desire to marry me.

The morning had started ordinarily enough. I was on a committee of the North Texas Council of Governments that was meeting that day in the nearby city of Arlington to review grant applications submitted by local nonprofit organizations. As I dressed that morning, I smiled while thinking of my friend Amanda who was also a member of the Trinity Foundation. Amanda was a tall, attractive woman with a strong personality. She and her husband, along with their children, had joined the group before me. We had similar religious backgrounds--she, too, had been a member of a Baptist church before coming to the Trinity Foundation. Her outspokenness always presented problems in her relationship with the Trinity Foundation's leader, Ole Anthony, and its elders. She had what the Trinity Foundation called a “rebellious spirit.”

Amanda and I had recently discussed Trinity Foundation's role in determining whether or not Doug and I could marry. Doug had been a member of the Trinity Foundation for twenty-one years and had been employed there for the last eleven years. I was still considered a newcomer since I had only been a member of the group for seven years, the length of time that I had been dating Doug. We believed that we were ready to marry, but we had yet to secure the approval of the Trinity Foundation's leader, Ole Anthony.

“What right does Ole have to say when you and Doug get married?” Amanda had asked me. I reminded her that, as the leader of Trinity Foundation, Ole was our “spiritual covering,” as were our Bible study teachers who were the elders of the foundation. There were three Bible study groups at that time. Amanda was in Ole's group and I was in the Bible study my boyfriend co-led with a married couple, Jan and Garth Brown. Another group was taught by Luke and Lee Ann, who were also elders of the foundation.

“But you and Doug aren't kids, Wendy. You are both in your forties, and you have been dating for seven years,” Amanda pointed out. “I don't know if this spiritual covering doctrine is right.”

Trinity Foundation was infused with the concept of spiritual covering, though the group's actual teaching on the subject was somewhat vague. The Bible study teachers were considered the spiritual covering for the members of their Bible study group, just as Ole was the spiritual covering for the other teachers and, by extension, for the membership of Trinity Foundation as a whole. Though how much authority the leader was to exercise over his flock was not explicitly defined, it was understood that anyone contemplating a major life decision should discuss it with his “covering” and respectfully submit to the leader's wisdom and discernment in deciding how to proceed. Doubts or questions a member might have regarding his spiritual advice were seen as evidence that the individual was headstrong and self-willed--or had a problem trusting the leadership.

On many occasions since we had been dating, Doug had discussed the possibility of our marriage with Ole and the two elders with whom Doug taught in one of the Bible study groups. According to their spiritual discernment, Doug and I were not ready to be married. Ole's official position was that he did not control whether or not anyone married. He simply said whether or not the Trinity Foundation could bless the union and participate in the wedding ceremony; however, this was disingenuous. When he would say things to Doug like, “If you marry Wendy right now, it will be a disaster,” he might as well have said, “I forbid it,” but Ole was too subtle for that. It was more effective to claim that he had the spiritual insight to see that we were not ready to marry.

As I was pulling out of my driveway that fateful morning to go to my meeting in Arlington, I saw Doug walking down the sidewalk towards my car and I immediately sensed from his facial expression that something was wrong. I rolled down my car window and asked him what was going on. He explained that Amanda had asked Ole during her group's Bible study the previous night where in scripture was the justification for the Trinity Foundation to control when and if members were allowed to marry. Ole apparently had stewed about her challenging question all night and had just attacked Doug publicly during the morning Bible study for his lack of contentment in being single.

That morning, for whatever reason, I could no longer tolerate Ole's manipulation. Although Doug begged me not to do so, I had to confront Ole. As I walked into the community dining room where Ole was eating breakfast, I was so angry that I could barely say hello to Hazel, Troy, and some of the other members who also were eating. I realized that what I was about to do was considered reprehensible behavior for a Trinity Foundation member. I knew that I was about to break one of the Trinity Foundation's unspoken rules: Do not challenge Ole--especially in public. I knew that what I was about to say was unacceptable in the minds of Ole and his followers--and would only be seen as evidence of my rebellious spirit--yet I proceeded.

“Ole, I need to talk with you,” I said boldly.

“What is it?” he replied as he sat eating his breakfast of grapefruit and toast.

I was almost shaking with anger as I said, “I cannot continue to allow you to use the Bible and your teaching of the cross as a justification for Doug and me to remain single. You are twisting scriptural passages to convince us that it is a sin for us to want to marry. Your interpretation of scripture is not right, Ole.”

“Wendy, your problem is that you have never understood the doctrine that we teach here at Trinity Foundation,” he replied as he continued to eat, not even bothering to look at me.

“Ole, I do understand the doctrine. What I do not understand is why you will not give us your approval. We have been dating for seven years. We love each other. We are both believers.”

“I don't give a rat's ass if you two get married!” he replied in a contemptuous tone.

“Then why do you keep opposing it?” I said. “Why do you persist in making Doug feel guilty for wanting to marry me? Your voice has gotten so loud, Ole, that I can't hear God's anymore!” I turned, ran out of the dining room, and drove away in my car.

I had never been so infuriated in my entire life or so confrontational, but as I drove through Dallas my anger dissipated, and I began to have a sinking feeling.

What on earth have I done? How could I have talked to Ole that way? I cried, believing that I had just lost the love of my life. Doug will never be able to forgive me for my blatant and shameless rebellion against Ole, and Ole will never let me forget it.

Website: http://www.dallascult.com

Link to purchase book: http://www.dallascult.com

Three Feet Under - Christee Gabour Atwood

Three Feet Under: Journal of a Midlife Crisis

By Christee Gabour Atwood

Prologue
Into every life some rain must fall. And that rainy season runs from mid-thirties to a mid-thirty inch waistline. It's midlife. That period that runs from the point of realization that attractive younger men now call us ma'am to the time when we realize that we're being nice to people just to be sure that there's a crowd at our funeral.

Midlife - It's a four -letter word … if you're a really bad speller. But it's also extremely funny it you look at it right … or if you ignore it … or if you sleep through as much of it as possible.

This journal chronicles my experiences from a year of midlife. Bad days, good days, bad days (yes, I meant to say that twice), and a couple of really special lessons learned along the way. Perhaps you have experienced similar moments. If so, we can suffer together. Or, if you haven't … I made the whole thing up…

Christee.biz

Amazon.com: christee atwood

The Evolution of an Identity Indian American Immigrants from the Early 20th Century to the Present: A Fictional Family History

The Evolution of an Identity
Indian American Immigrants from the
Early 20th Century to the Present:
A Fictional Family History

by Diya Das



The First Wave:

Clash of Cultures, San Francisco, 1917-1918

“Some push us around, some curse us. Where is your splendor and prestige today?” - Ghadr protest song

“It was here the sentiment was born that this favored land must be maintained as a white man’s country, and we are resolved that this principle shall be established as fundamental and vital.” - San Francisco Chronicle, 1907

“...the white man has two standards, one for his own use and the other for the man with the brown skin.” - Sikh, 1908

The first Indian in the United States is believed to have been a sailor who entered the country in 1790, but the first sizeable migration of Indians to the United States did not occur for more than a decade, in 1907. The “first wave” of Indian immigrants consisted of mostly poor, uneducated Punjabi farmworkers, younger sons with no land in India. They initially immigrated to California, Washington, and Oregon in the hopes of making a quick profit and then returning home with some extra money in their pockets.

Following these Punjabis, who were mostly Sikhs, came a smaller group of young intellectuals who hoped to study in the United States. While well educated in India, some of these students were not wealthy enough to pay for their education at American institutions, and they often worked alongside the Punjabi Sikhs during the summers to pay their tuition. My Californian ancestor became one of these student-farmer types on a more permanent basis when he was expelled from Stanford University for his participation in the Ghadr movement, which university officials viewed as anarchist.

The most famous of these Indian students were Lala Har Dayal and Taraknath Das, both Hindus who studied at Stanford University. In 1912, Lala Har Dayal and Taraknath Das founded the Ghadr Party, whose aim was to gain Indian independence from Great Britain. Drawing on the ideals of the American revolution and the social difficulties experienced by Sikhs in the United States, Har Dayal, the primary leader of the movement, managed to create a significantly large organization to worry British officials, who infiltrated the movement and persuaded American officials to prosecute Ghadr members on conspiracy charges. The result was the infamous San Francisco Hindu German Conspiracy Trial which lasted from 1917 to 1918 and temporarily destroyed the Ghadr movement in the United States.

[Compiled from several entries all made in January 1917]

The day of the “Hindu” laborers begins before dawn, as we leave the bare cabins to work in the fields. The white employer is amazed at our industriousness, but for us, it is nothing. In the summer, we work especially long and hard by American standards. We normally wake up at 4 am and work with their teams until 10 am, use their hoes until 4 pm, and then their teams until 9 pm. Occasionally, workers wake up at 1 am if there is a great deal of work to be done. Our eagerness for difficult labor may seem odd to an American, but the work is nothing for an Indian who needs to make a living. The words of Professor E.E. Chandler at Occidental College are typical of the white employers’ attitude toward Indians: “I do not believe the Imperial Valley is a white man’s country and I am willing to hand it over to the Hindus and Japanese.”

The first Indian immigrants came to northern California in 1907, but the majority did not come for several years afterward. Many came to escape persecution and the British rule of India. They began working in the fields, orchards, lumber mills, and railroads around Marysville in Northern California. They were especially attracted to California’s narrow farming belt, which runs the length of the entire state. The climate is similar to Punjab, and the threats of typhoid and malaria are nothing to Indians and other East Asians. Many of the original immigrants became migrant workers, passing southward as the growing season progressed.5 By 1909, Indians were farming sugar beets in Monterey Bay, Visalia, and Oxnard; celery, potato, bean fields near Holt (a town near Stockton); and the orange groves of Southern California.

Indians have been working in America for nearly ten years, but we are still stereotyped by the white community. I am a true Hindu, while the rest of my comrades are Sikhs. This model is representative of the rest of the Indian population in California; there are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians, but mostly Sikhs. Still, the small minority populations have confused many Americans, who think all of us wear turbans, but call us Hindus. We are the “turbaned tide” of “ragheads” to the newspapers. While many of us fit the white stereotype of the uneducated savage, individuals like myself are largely ignored.

I was educated in India under the influence of British civilization, and I came to America to study at Stanford University. It was here that I made my connections with the Ghadr Party of the United States [party for Indian independence from England, founded in the United States]. However, I soon found out that revolutionary activities are not looked upon kindly in the country of the first modern revolution. I was warned to disassociate myself from the Ghadr Party or I would be expelled. But how do you give up your ideals and call yourself a human being? Now I have no money to return home, even if I desired to, so I remain as one of the few educated agricultural workers in the fields and orchards of California. Over the past few years, I have become a close observer of the largely Sikh Indian community and of the Ghadr movement in the United States.

The Sikhs are unusual in that they are isolated from every other community in the United States. There is no friendship between migrant workers of different races, especially because they are often competing for the same jobs. Only race, not a similarity of economic situation, can forge a bond between low-paid agricultural laborers.

One such example is the situation of 1907, the first year of a considerable Sikh influx. In that year, the Japanese keiyaku-nin (labor contractors) were on the verge of forcing better wages in 1907. White farm owners would have been forced to hire the Japanese at rates close to $3 per day. Employers were in a corner until the Sikhs migrated to America. Working at first for $0.75 per day, the Sikhs formed a migrant labor force along with Mexicans and a few Greeks.9 Although many were unskilled in the fields, they worked their way up in the labor force. Now, some of them work for $4 per day, most of which they send to their struggling families on the other side of the world in Punjab. The Japanese, embittered by the loss of their near-win in the struggle for dominance, often call Sikhs “English slaves” and “poles” because of their height.

Still, despite Sikh successes, the early years of low wages have ruined the image of the Indian laborer, not to mention the 1909 U.S. Immigration Commission report’s admission that it is “practically universal to discriminate against the East Indian in wages.” In their dealings with employers, Sikh bosses often recall how surprised employers are that they and their men are competitive farmers. The white men consistently underestimate the Indian, even as they praise him. The same Professor Chandler from Occidental College once made a remark that was complimentary and racist at the same time: “The Hindu resembles us except that he is a black ‐ and we are shocked to see a black white man.” Still, many Sikhs regard such remarks as compliments. On the social ladder, they say, they are much below African Americans and Mexicans. Sometimes the darker skinned ones have even attempted to pass themselves off as African Americans to obtain higher wages, while the lighter-skinned pretend to be Mexican laborers.

Banks may praise the Sikh, but almost no one else does. Angry whites, afraid that they might lose their jobs to a race willing to work longer hours for less pay, have called them names and beat them. In one incident in early 1908, many Sikhs who had worked for a man named George Pierce were driven out of Davisville. It was one of the most publicized attacks on Sikhs. The Sikh laborers had started work as orchard pruners, but the whites were afraid of the small, but growing, number of Sikhs in their little town. The white residents beat and terrorized the Sikhs, burning their camp, robbing them of $2500, and finally driving them out of town. At the end of its account, the Sacramento Bee happily declared, “All is quiet today and there will be no more trouble if the Hindus keep away.”

Another of my gang told me of another smaller, but not uncommon, incident. “I used to go to Marysville every Saturday,” he said, “[and] buy children ice cream and talk. One day a drunk ghora (white man) came out of a bar and motioned to me saying, ‘Come here, slave!’ I said I was no slave man. He told me that his (i.e. white man’s race) ruled India and America, too. All we were were slaves. He came close to me and I hit him and got away fast.”

The Sikhs, isolated from American society, have built their own organizations. They have formed labor gangs of pindi (village-men), even if their geographic proximity in India was questionable. They have “discovered” tenuous family links so they could truly call themselves family. An extended family in India is very important, so often the gangs consist of twelve to twenty men. They are fluid organizations, with members often coming and going, and during harvest time, there are sometimes sixty men in one gang. Some “gangs” have adopted American institutions. In Vacaville, Sotham Singh is known as a Sikh labor contractor, negotiating labor contracts for large groups of workers.

Sotham Singh has taken the place of the boss man in the traditional Sikh labor gang. The bosses negotiate labor contracts for the whole group. Sometimes, Hindus even join the groups because the work requires an extra laborer. Sharing living expenses and wages, the workers form gangs for a mutual support system, creating almost a collective organization. Each group of workers also takes care of an older man useless for field labor, and they pay him equal wages to serve as their cook. Gangs pay for weekly groceries, and when necessary, a funeral for their pindu (village-mate). They are often the only link to a past life in India, and it is for this that I stay with my gang, even though they are of a lower class and a different religion.

[Compiled from entries of February 1917]

There was another Ghadr meeting tonight. Increasingly, the leadership of the Party has struggled to stay in control of the meetings. The Sikh farm laborers have begun complaining more often about discrimination in the fields and the orchards. As soon as one man mentions how he is paid less than another worker of say, the African race, the others join in with a chorus of righteous exclamations.

The fools cannot keep their mouths shut about their difficulties in America. Ghadr Party members are forced to spend precious time listening to their complaints at a meeting of a political party designed to change the political, social, and economic balance in India.20 Their social complaints about life in America would be better addressed at one of their gurdwaras, those Sikh temples that house religious social service organizations.

Despite their social concerns, the quality of life in America is not as important as whether the laborers are able to earn a living. Most plan to return to India after they have earned a sufficient sum of money to support their families. The men here are mostly younger sons who have come to seek their fortune and return home. The Ghadr Party is merely a political organization founded in the United States for the benefit of the sojourners, who are supposedly able to do more to win Indian independence in America.

Rather than formulating plans to achieve Indian independence, the peasants spend the meetings telling stories. A select group of Hindu intellectuals founded this movement five years ago with the name “Revolution.” Some translate it “mutiny.” The name itself is Punjabi, and strangely enough, the farmers seem to have forgotten their native tongue.

It is most likely with the dissent in mind that Ram Chandra officially began the meeting with the singing of a particular Ghadr song, to remind the Sikhs of our purpose:

The time for prayer is gone.

It is the time to take up the sword.

Empty talk does not serve any purpose.

It is time to engage in a fierce battle.

Only the names of those who long

for martyrdom will shine.

The next textual items on the agenda were quotes from the works of Thomas Jefferson and others of his generation, who have long been regarded as the founders of the first modern democracy. They are one of the reasons why we dare to foment rebellion half a world away from our families and all things familiar: this is America, the land of freedom and opportunity, where, more than a century ago, another group of men declared their freedom from the British Empire. They fought a war and won the right to form their own nation; what better place to start a revolution than here?

If there is any doubt about the purpose of the Ghadr movement, the American Declaration of Independence justifies our actions:

But when a long train of abuses & usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, & to provide new guards for their future security...The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries & usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

In contrast to the American situation, the British have been abusing Indians for nearly three centuries. The first armed rebellion to our resistance movement caused the formal transfer of power from the British East India Company to the British crown, and there have been no other rebellions of note since. Only a collision of unbearable circumstances has forced us to rebel. In the early part of this century, many of us fled India for America because of famine and disease. Epidemics ‐ cholera, smallpox, the plague ‐ swept across the country. In the midst of the deaths, the British seized our land, annexed the state of Punjab, and forced us into poverty. Granted, subdivisions of land below profitable levels has increased the number of landless farmers because of foreclosures, but the loss of Indian land is not the first instance of British tyranny. The British have been physically torturing and tormenting our people in various ways since the day they entered our country. There is no justice: if a native Indian does have an opportunity to testify at a trial, he cannot afford to leave his home. In “The Rights of British America,” Thomas Jefferson describes the American situation under British rule, which is similar to the subjugation of Indians:

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.

Just as the Japanese field workers call us “English slaves,” Indians are verbally insulted everywhere we go. As one Ghadr song states,

The whole world calls us black thieves, The whole world calls us “coolie.”

This abuse from those outside of our community ought to unite us in purpose, since the first step toward improving social conditions everywhere is respect from the rest of the world; that is, we must fight and win a war against the British in India. However, Sikhs have filled every Ghadr meeting for the past two years with complaints about the movement’s failure to improve their lives. There was a time, at the founding of our blessed organization in this country, that this tension between Hindus and Sikhs was not as apparent. However difficult relations between Hindus and Sikhs may be in India, in California in 1912, we all were able to ignore religion for a greater and nobler purpose: the freedom of India from the British Raj.

Our first newspaper, printed in San Francisco on November 1, 1913, proudly displayed an editorial written by Lala Har Dayal to describe our purpose:

Today there begins in foreign lands, but in our country’s tongue, a war against the British Raj...What is our name? Mutiny. What is our work? Mutiny. Where will mutiny break out? In India. The time will soon come when rifles and blood will take the place of pens and ink.

The patriotism of the movement, partly due to America’s own revolutionary history, led us for a year or so. Then, Lala Har Dayal, the Punjabi Hindu who founded the organization, was forced to flee to Germany, after he was arrested by American officials for preaching anarchism.

The movement nearly collapsed after Lala Har Dayal left the United States. He placed Ram Chandra, another Hindu, in charge of the movement. Ram Chandra is not a Punjabi like Har Dayal, and even more prejudiced against the Sikh farmers than I could ever possibly be. In only three years of his leadership, Ram Chandra has managed to alienate almost every Sikh member of the Party. He has reorganized the Party to exclude all Sikhs from administrative or organizing positions. Ram Chandra has also openly disparaged the Sikhs, calling them all sorts of filthy names, while at the same time using their money for Party activities. Many have broken away and under Bhagwan Singh, have formed a new Ghadr Party with the same name and newspaper. Now there are two organizations claiming to be the real Ghadr Party.

The same year that Har Dayal left, four hundred of our revolutionaries returned to India to start the freedom fight. The meeting before they left was a celebratory one, in anticipation of the coming victory. We passed around old copies of the Ghadr, reading aloud the messages that had led to this final send-off, such as one editorial proclaiming:

Enough: Wake, O Hindus and rub your eyes. Open your minds. Store your wealth in the Ghadr office and register your name in the army of the Ghadr. Cleanse your blood. How long will you remain seated in lethargy? Be ready to spring like tigers.

The initial call for mutiny in India was painted on one wall of our meetinghouse, just as it had been printed in the newspaper several months before:

WANTED

Fearless, courageous soldiers for spreading mutiny in India

Salary: Death

Reward: Martyrdom and Freedom

Place: The Field of India

Although many Ghadarites did succeed in rousing the peasantry, a large number failed and were arrested by British spies. The rebellions were quickly put down, and the initial failure caused morale to drop sharply in America. Since then, we have worked to rebuild the Party in America, but the arrests have cost us support.

March 3, 1917

It seems that the Ghadr movement has attracted more attention than anyone had anticipated. In the middle of the Great War, a combination of envy and distrust has served to make us the subject of an investigation. For a few brief months in 1914, we had begun communications with German intelligence through the agent C.K. Chakraverty. We broke off relations as soon as the war began, but still the relationship with the Indian National Committee in Berlin has been exaggerated in the press. Some have accused us of disloyalty and treason because we sought to better the economic and social status of our people.

March 18, 1917

The Party has suffered a significant loss. Several members have been arrested on conspiracy charges. The newspapers describe it as “the Hindu German Conspiracy,” but there is little truth in that statement. There have been no communications with the Berlin Indian National Committee since the official declaration of war, when the United States entered the war against Germany, but anything deemed “un-American” has been under suspicion since that time. The American newspapers have changed the German names of streets, foods, and everyday household objects, and anything remotely connected with Germany is under suspicion. The bad reputation of the arrival of the Sikh laborers as the “invasion” of the “turbaned tide” has not attracted much sympathy for the Ghadr cause. British spies have infiltrated our movement, and the agent Hopkinson has supplied false information about Ghadr activities to the American government. The newspapers are only too happy to supply fictional accounts of our monstrous doings to satisfy the appetite of the American public.

The first people arrested have been only those directly involved in the dropped India-Germany link, not active members of the main Ghadr movement. The agent Chandra Kanta Chakraverty has been arrested, along with the Germans Franz Bopp, Ernst Sekuna, E. H. von Schack, and William von Brincken.36 So far, none of the main body of the Ghadr Party has been affected by these arrests, but I can only assume that many of us will be dragged into this mess before it disappears, through the association of the arrested men with the Ghadr Party.

November 4, 1917

I have spent this long summer and most of autumn in hiding, disguising myself as a Mexican migrant worker. The Mexicans looked at me strangely when I first joined their group, but they have been surprisingly sympathetic, allowing me to hide my Indian identity.

American officials have arrested Ram Chandra and one hundred and five of our fellow Party members since March, the time of the first arrests. Their trial begins in a week or two, and I have elected to remain in San Francisco to hear the fates of my comrades. Unquestionably, the Ghadr movement has been shattered in the United States. Most of the leadership either has fled the country, or is lying in God-knows-what condition in a filthy jail cell. I cannot visit the jail myself, but a few of my more adventurous Mexican comrades have taken their chances to peer inside the high-barred windows of the jail. They do not return with the same smile on their faces as when they had left, but they will not tell me anything.

Despite the dangers, I occasionally manage my own foray into town, although I am careful to stay several hundred feet away from the jail. It is not difficult to hide in San Francisco at this moment. Larger than usual crowds wander in the streets to catch sight of the new imprisoned attractions. Journalists from all over the United States are crowding around the courthouse and the jail, trying to catch a glimpse of those inside. They shout questions day and night at my miserable comrades cramped inside their prison cells.

May 1, 1918

It seems that it has been ages since my comrades first went on trial in the San Francisco courthouse, but it has only been a little over one year since the arrests began. On November 20, the first day of the trial, I finally dared approach the building to stare in through the windows, along with so many others who could not get a seat inside. The authorities had cracked open a few windows, so that the voices of the lawyers carried outside, and nearly all was silent in the streets as many people pressed up against the courthouse windows.

Inside, the dark, filthy, disheartened faces of the arrested Hindus and Sikhs on one side of the courtroom contrasted with the best clothes of the town officials and the handsome suits of the Washington diplomats. The prosecution was mostly calm and collected, confident of their ability to win, while my comrades were calm as well, but out of resignation rather than assurance of winning their case.

The trial began surprisingly with a reference to the esteemed Har Dayal. The U.S. Attorney said in his opening statement:

This conspiracy had its inception surrounding this one individual. This man, Har Dayal…was a rank, out-and-out Anarchist; he believed in a combination and consolidation of all Anarchistic forces in the entire world for the purpose of social, industrial and all other kinds of revolutions of the rankest character.

After this dramatic proclamation, the trial dragged on for weeks, which then turned into months. I cannot remember now when anything happened, but only what did happen. The highlights of the trial proved to be short bursts of drama, as the case took unexpected turns.

Sometime, days or weeks from the start of the trial, one of the former members of the Ghadr Party came forth to testify for the prosecution. His betrayal provoked the first reaction from the defendants, as they all stared in surprise and then glared at his reappearance. Jodh Singh was one of the four hundred Ghadarites who had left to stir up protest in India in 1914. The last the Ghadarites had heard of him, he had been arrested by British officials in Bangkok.40 It was obvious, now, that British agents had shipped him from Asia to betray the Party. Then, surprisingly, he refused to testify when he took the witness stand, shouting, “I will die with my own countrymen!” Officers removed him from the witness stand. I left the window to find something to eat, and to mull over Jodh Singh’s sudden changes of allegiance. I decided to return to work, and it was several weeks before I came to the courthouse again.

At the time of my arrival, there seemed to be an even larger drama than that of Jodh Singh’s reappearance unfolding inside. When I asked the watchers what was happening, they all told me in not-so-complimentary terms to be quiet. Phrase by phrase, I managed to hear the controversy through the courtroom windows. Apparently, one of the defendants was complaining of inadequate legal representation. The other Indian defendants shouted, “Give us justice--this is a farce!” It was at this point that I realized how long this trial could potentially last without any useful arguments being made.

The trial proceeded in a strangely comic manner over the following months. Each bizarre occurrence received the generally expected response, but for a few surprises. For example, one day, the agent Chakraverty decided to confess to his participation in a German-Indian alliance. The revelation caused a furor on the side of the defense, as all defendants vehemently denied any connection.

Sometime after Chakraverty gave his confession, another Ghadarite accused Ram Chandra of selling him and five others into slavery to the Germans for $10,000 and alleged that Ghadr rules stated that he ought to be killed for exposing secrets to the public. The prosecution also made further ridiculous comments on the Ghadr agenda, suggesting that party members plotted to bring Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Indian poet and philosopher, to the United States as part of a conspiracy. They brought forth evidence of a letter which they had “decoded” to read that Chakraverty had played a role in Tagore’s visit to the U.S.45 The prosecution also brought forth other decoded messages that supposedly indicated that Ghadr agents stationed in countries such as England, Germany, France, Japan, and China, as well as those on Pacific islands, were agitating for Indian independence as per orders originating from the United States. While it is true that the Ghadr movement does have sister movements outside of the United States and India, any communication between these groups has been strictly between leaders, with no involvement of the large body of Party members. Still, the newspaper reporters scribbled furiously, attempting to record every one of these ludicrous statements.

In the midst of all these accusations, however, the defendants managed to cause a small furor in the courthouse. One of the defendants subpoenaed an American, William Jennings Bryan, who has written a book about India. The newspapers speculated that the defense lawyers might attempt to use Bryan’s book to show that the German link was not the cause of revolutionary activities, but rather the conditions in India. Regardless of the controversy excited by calling upon an American man in defense of a foreigner, the situation soon resolved itself and the trial continued its slow march to a verdict.

The trial finally appeared to be coming to a close early this year, when the most unexpected event happened. The court had just announced a recess, when out of nowhere, Ram Singh, one of the defendants, shot Ram Chandra, who was also on trial. It appeared that the trial had succeeded in killing the American Ghadr movement. Newspapers based as far away as the Washington Post reported the incident:

Ram Chandra arose and started across the room. Ram Singh also arose. He raised his revolver and began firing. Ram Chandra staggered forward and fell dead before the witness chair, with a bullet in his heart and two others in his body.

At the same moment Ram Singh fell. Holohan [a U.S. Marshal] had shot once with his arm high over his head, so that the bullet should clear nearby counsel. The shot broke Ram Singh’s neck.

Everyone had scrambled for safety after the first shot was fired. There was great disorder in the courtroom, and it took the judge some time to restore order. The judge ordered everyone out of the courtroom, except for the law officials. The crowd returned home in a subdued manner, and all of us watching through the windows followed.

One week later, Judge Van Fleet has handed down the final verdict. Twenty-one of the 101 defendants left have been convicted of conspiracy in a fabricated court case. Their sentences are light, from one to eighteen months of jail time, but the loss still hurts the Ghadr Party. No one speaks of achieving equal status with whites in the United States, and there is little talk of revolution. The media has dispersed, but there is no talk of a Ghadr meeting or even a Ghadr newspaper. I suspect that after their jail time is over, many will return to India, or at least leave California. I myself have decided to return to India, taking whatever savings I have and finding a job there to support my family. America is no longer the land of opportunity for the Indian immigrant.

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