The Adventures of Heracles Mendoza: The Golden Lion, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The feeling of liquid running over his teeth, around his tongue, and down his throat brought Les back to consciousness. His mouth grew warm and began to tingle, touched by a certain sweetness, something like honey, but deeper, richer. The way whipped cream is deeper and richer than air, he thought, still very groggy. A feeling of warmth trailed in the liquid’s wake, moving down his throat and into his stomach. Once there, the tingling fire began spreading through his body. His heart responded with a quickening, strengthening beat.

There had been pain in his head, though he had only been dimly aware of it till just then. Now it was lifting, dissolved by some effortless power. Relief flooded through him, sweeping away all the pain and discomfort like so much floating debris. The effect was so powerful that he thought he was going to melt, and slide off the table into a grateful puddle on the floor.

When the surge finally receded, it left him empty and cavernous and hollow inside. The sensation was brief, reminding him of that hanging moment he always felt just before an elevator would stop. It was supplanted by a growing sense of renewed energy and strength. Expanding rapidly, his entire body was soon alive with fresh vitality and a raw, wild sensation of power. He reacted by jumping up from the table on which he lay, even before he opened his eyes. Only a hand restrained him. A very large hand.

“Do not try to stand quite yet,” a reassuring voice said. “Allow the initial effects to run their course. It won’t be long.”

Les blinked, trying to focus. The giant was standing beside him. His name was Polydeuces, Les remembered with a clarity that surprised him. Pol, he had said. Something was different, though. His overwhelming fear of the man was missing. “Where am I?”

“The Portalhouse, young master.” Pol replied, smiling down at him.

Les blinked and stretched his eyes until the room around him came into dazzling focus. It was large and open, and lined with a dozen long, gleaming silver tables, arranged like a dining hall with a wide aisle down the center. The walls were made of seamless panels, silvery-steel, laden with beautifully inscribed patterns. A large landscape picture hung on the opposite side, the green of its meadows, and the blue of its sky ridiculously bright against the metal wall. To his right, a high counter ran the breadth of the room. Behind the counter, extending all the way to the softly glowing ceiling, were shelves crowded with bottles, jars, and bowls of various sizes and shapes. At the opposite end of the room stood a pair of very solid-looking metal doors.

“Young master,” Pol said, “I would like to introduce you to ’Dora. It is she who prepared the elixir which restored you to health.” Les looked around in confusion. He didn’t see anyone else in the room.

The Golden Lion, Chapter 3

Les rode on a blast of pure black speed for what seemed like forever, and yet like one impossibly suspended moment. Then there was a lightning crack, and with it the movement simply stopped. Les clamped his eyes shut against the gray light that was suddenly there. When he opened them, a little at a time, he saw that the couple with the baby was gone, and all the nearby seats were vacant.

"Hello?" he called out. The hollow silence supplied the answer he instinctively feared: he was alone. Did I black out? It didn't feel like he had passed out. He thought he remembered the whole thing: the burst of golden light, the sudden darkness, the directionless whoosh of acceleration. But where is everyone? He must've blacked out, he decided, at least part of the time. It was the only way to explain the absence of the other passengers.

"Hello," he called again and tried to stand. His seat belt, still fastened, yanked him down. Les felt for the buckle, found that it was jammed and wouldn't release. A small, electric spark of dread coursed through him. Was that why he been left behind? Because his seatbelt was stuck? Was anybody coming back for him? He couldn't believe they would just leave him all alone.

Les began to notice strange things about the plane. For one, the cabin was completely unlit, illuminated only by the dingy daylight coming through the windows. The light strips that bordered the aisle were out, as were all the ceiling lights. It was as if the plane's power had been cut off, yet the plane itself was perfectly intact. Then there was the undeniable tinge of gold. It was everywhere: the seats, the floor, the entire interior of the cabin. At first he wondered if perhaps the brilliant bombardment he had endured was having a lingering effect on his vision. But when he looked down at himself, his clothes were unaffected, and his own skin was its usual bronzy-brown. Confused, he looked to the window and was startled by another difference: the glass in his window was missing. He raised a finger, and slowly pushed it through the opening. "What the--" he mumbled. "The window's gone?" He twisted around, checking the others. All of them looked empty, as if someone had come along and collected all the glass. When could that have happened? he wondered. And why?

Les's stomach, which he had forgotten about, began to writhe again. With a low moan, he glanced outside. Only then did he notice they were not on an airport runway, or at an airport at all. Instead, it appeared that the plane was parked on gray rock, flat as concrete, spreading out in all directions. In the far distance Les could see a towering, arcing wall of sheer rock of the same gray color, its upper edge visible only when he cranked his head to one side and peered upward through the window. Where are we? He scanned along the base of the cliff, and finally found a solitary building, dwarfed beneath the high wall. Beyond that, he could find no other sign of life, not even a single shrub, or a blade of grass.

Must've had to make some kind of emergency landing, he surmised. But that still doesn't explain where everyone went, or why they left me here. He swallowed hard, blocking the rising terror at his throat. Wait, he told himself. Maybe everybody else is on the other side of the plane where I can't see them. Or maybe they're in that building. "If I could just get this stupid seatbelt off," he snarled. Grasping it with both hands, Les tried his best to force the buckle to open. He pulled until his arms began to tremble, and his strength gave out, but it still wouldn't budge. Then he tried to wriggle out from under the strap, but he couldn't move more than a few inches either way. Frustrated, Les threw himself back against the seat. His head struck a cushion that he knew was made of soft foam, but felt hard as steel. It clanged hollowly.

"Ow!" he cried, twisting back and giving his seat an evil look. "What is going on around here?"

He was still rubbing his head when movement outside the window caught his eye. A man was crossing the expanse between the plane and the building. Within a few minutes, he had drawn close enough that Les could see he was dressed in some kind of pale blue business suit. The bright yellow flash of his tie stood out, even at this distance. The man appeared to be quite large, though that was difficult to judge against the emptiness of the surroundings. He carried some kind of bag in one hand, and walked at a brisk pace. Les watched him, nervous but hopeful that he was coming to free him.

The Golden Lion, Chapter 2

Les finally reached the gate near the end of the terminal. The waiting area was already crowded. After searching briefly, he was able to find a single empty seat overlooking the tarmac through a high window wall. With a sigh of relief, he slumped into the chair. His stomach was aching badly, and his legs were still a little weak. He wiped a film of sweat from his face with a corner of his shirt. Navigating through the airport had turned out to be an even worse experience than he imagined.

It started off well enough. The lady at the check-in counter had been kind. When she saw that he was traveling by himself, she gave him a map of the airport, circling in red both the security checkpoint and the gate. As she did so, she instructed him to tell the gate attendants that he was something called an ‘unaccompanied minor,’ which should allow him to board the plane early. She even offered to have someone escort him from the security checkpoint to the gate. Les politely refused, thinking it would look pretty stupid to be walking around with an airline employee like he was a lost child. Still, he appreciated her concern, even as he resented himself. He was pretty sure she had only been so considerate because she saw how nervous he was.

Getting through security was a very different matter. First, there was the line. When Les saw it, snaking back and forth through a cordoned maze of black straps and chrome posts, he immediately began to worry. With a groan, he traced the line backwards, and took his place at the end. The people were bunched so tightly that Les couldn’t even be sure how many times the line folded back on itself. All he could do was wait, watching for the periodic spurts of movement, each of which traveled down the line like a slow-moving millipede. When the ripple reached him, Les shuffled forward a few feet, then stopped. This is going to take forever, he moaned to himself. I’m gonna miss my flight.

At each turn in the line, Les would try to look ahead, and see how far he was from the checkpoint. It was during one of these moments that he happened to lock eyes with one of the security agents. Les’ heart spiked, and he quickly looked away. After that, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was tracking him, though he was very careful not to look directly at him again. Stop being so nervous, Les told himself savagely. They might think I’m a terrorist or something. You don’t want to end up in a very small room with a very large man wearing latex gloves, do you?

The Golden Lion, Chapter 1

“Nervous?” Lisa said, casting a glance at Les’ rapidly jiggling leg.

“No,” Les replied. His leg stilled.

“So, how was it staying at nana’s and tata’s? How’s La Jolla?” she asked.

Les shrugged. “Okay.”

“Did nana make her green chile?” Les didn’t respond. Lisa gave him a prolonged glance. “Talkative today, aren’t we?” she said archly.

Les said nothing, just stared straight out the windshield as they raced along the freeway.

As she drove, Lisa’s eyes flitted between the road and her brother. “You’re nervous about flying by yourself, aren’t you?”

“No I’m not,” he answered curtly. In fact, Les was nervous about the flight to Seattle, and growing more so by the minute. But he knew better than to admit it to his older sister. Years of bitter experience had taught him that.

“So what’s bothering you?”

“I’m fine, Lisa. Just drop it.”

Lisa was silent for a few moments. “Les, it’s okay,” she said, her voice assuming a softer, lulling quality that Les knew all too well. Here it comes. The heartfelt invitation to spill my guts. How many times have I fallen for that one? It was her one of her most effective tactics, and it always began the same way: she would ply him relentlessly with sincere, sisterly overtures to confidence. He could tell her anything, she would say. She would listen to him without judging, no matter what it was. Mom and dad would never find out. And she sounded so authentic, so convincing, that, even though he knew she was lying, she would still somehow persuade him into believing her. He would reveal whatever dark, horrible secret he was hiding, or the embarrassing incident at school, or the lamest, most stupid little thing; it didn’t seem to matter how big or small it was. It only mattered that she could get it out of him. Well, not this time, sister.

Les leaned back, looked sideways out the door window. The city of San Diego sparkled in the bright blue sunshine, the towers and skyscrapers stark and straight and proper against the ocean. Behind them, the graceful curve of the Coronado Bridge rose and dipped.

“So, how’dja do in your games?” she asked after a time.

Oh, like I don’t know this one, Les thought. Change subjects, get me to lower my guard, and then come back in for the kill. You’re being way too obvious, Leese. Hardly one semester away from home, and you’re losing your touch. “We went one-and-two,” he said finally, in answer to her question.

“Oh,” she said. “Not so good, huh? What happened?”

Les shrugged as if it wasn’t important.

“So what team are you on this year? JV?”

Les nodded once. If she was set on dragging something out of him, he was going to make her work as hard he could.

“Well, that’s good,” Lisa replied, undeterred. “I mean, at least you’re not on that freshman team you hated so much last year.”

Les stared down at the floorboards. “Yeah, well, that really wasn’t an option, since I’m a sophomore now,” he said acidly.

“I know that. I just meant, well, I mean, you made the cut, right? Plus, now you get to be on the same team with your bestie, so life’s a beach, no?”

Les turned from the window, leveled his eyes coldly at his sister. “Yeah, it’s a real beach.”

She looked at him, perplexed, until she had deciphered his response. “What, Omar made Varsity?”

“Of course he did,” Les said, “because that’s how things always work for me.” He paused, and then groaned loudly. “No, that’s not fair,” he said. “I mean, he totally deserves it. He led JV in scoring last year. Offensive rebounds. Steals. He was their best player, hands down. ‘Course it didn’t hurt that he grew five inches in the last twelve months.”

“Really?” Lisa said, evidently surprised. “So what is he now?”

“Six-one-and-a-half,” Les said. “He said his doctor told him he probably had four or five more inches left to grow.”

“Omar?” Lisa said, surprised. “In eighth grade, you two were the almost the same height.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Les said icily. Then, sensing an opportunity to take a shot of his own, added, “Besides, you haven’t been around in forever. If you had, you would’ve seen him.”

The Adventures of Heracles Mendoza - Sneak peak!

After months of revising and rewriting and polishing, I finally have a chunk of the novel ready to read that stands a decent chance of not embarrassing me. Just to be clear, I said a decent chance. I have written a prologue, which I am currently undecided about using, mostly because the tone and style of it is so very different from the book itself. Still, I'm posting it here because it does introduce the character in what I hope is a charming manner, plus it serves the additional purpose of raising the question as to who exactly the narrator of this story really is, and that, it seems to me, is a very fair question.

After the prologue, there are links to a PDF version of Chapters 1-4 as well as a link to a Word document that readers can complete and return to me if they wish to send me feedback. Or feel free to comment directly on the blog. Thanks for reading!

PROLOGUE

Where to begin?

Many writers like to start their stories with a bang, jumping right into the middle of some hot mess, trying to hook the reader with a shocking dose of tense, dizzying commotion. Others take the slow, methodical approach, carefully setting the scene, and then zooming in slowly like a camera until the main character is front and center.

But, really, a story can start any old way. I suspect that deciding just where to begin a story is a problem that drives writers crazy. Or maybe it’s just me. I wish I knew for sure. I don’t know too many writers.

Take this story, for example. This one begins on a sunny morning in the city of El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, which is a large metropolis in the state of California, in the country of The United States, in the Year of Our Lord 2009. It begins with a fourteen-year-old (almost fifteen) boy by the name of Les Mendoza, as he plays basketball with a couple of friends on Monday, June 10^th, the first real day of summer break (because everyone knows that weekends don’t count…).

But is that the best place for the story to start?

So, you’ve written a book…

What does it mean to have written a book?

That’s the question I’m asking myself now, a week after finishing the first draft manuscript of my first novel.  I’m wondering what is it that I’ve done.

I’m supposed to feel really good, and I did, for nearly the entire day.

But that euphoria didn’t last, and coming down was like a caffeine crash.  It was, in fact, a caffeine crash, because immediately after finishing the book I swore off coffee and the like, at least for a month.  By the next day I was in a completely explicable funk, tired and cranky.  I was mentally exhausted, having written the last six chapters in the last two weeks of the year.  Around, under, over and through the holidays.  When I complained of this to Elizabeth, she told me I was just tired and needed to rest. 

But I knew there was more to it than that.  I had a new question to answer, and no suspects.

What does it mean to have written a book?

For the next week, I did no writing at all, and stayed away from the computer as much as possible.  I felt lost.  Withdrawal symptoms.  Following Stephen King’s advice, I decided to put aside the manuscript for a month, use the time to gain some distance and some clarity.  I started thinking about the next book, and also about the future role and function of thunderstrokes.  But the question loomed over me the entire time, still hangs over me, and so now I’m trying to sort it out, the only way I seem to be able to sort things out anymore, in writing. 

What does it mean to have written a book?

Where do you even start to answer that question?  Elizabeth tells me it’s a great accomplishment.  But in my mind, the answer comes back quick:  it’s only a first draft of a manuscript.  One massive revision is needed just to make coherent and readable enough to critique, and then at least another to make it publishable.  And that’s only if I perform magnificently.  From where I stand, it doesn’t feel like a book yet.

The sober, rational side of me looks at how I’ve spent my time and wonders what the hell I was ever thinking.  Two-and-a-half years spent finding my voice, finding a way forward, and then dreaming up this crazy story about a kid who has to go to a strange land and accomplish the Twelve Labors of Hercules, and then turning that dream into a rickety reality, held together, it mostly seems, with equal parts duct tape and pixie dust. Two-and-a-half years of lost income and retirement savings, of trying to dress up a dream in work-clothes, of feeling like a bystander while Elizabeth bears the entire financial load for our family, of struggling with fears and doubts and uncertainties about myself as a writer in an endless procession of constantly changing mutations, each one as ferocious and as deadly as any monster Hercules ever faced, or will. 

I know that sounds dramatic, but I believe it.  The harshest battles most of us will ever face is with ourselves.  Our inner monsters cannot be seen, and for that we should be grateful.  I sincerely believe that if they were given a tangible form, they would fill us with such terror and paralyzing fear it would put Hollywood’s horror-meisters and their paltry creations to shame.

So that, at least, is something. I have learned that I can live with the doubts and uncertainties, and find my way through.

Adventures of Hercules Mendoza: Tease #1

So, everybody who reads thunderstrokes knows that I’m working on a novel based on Greek mythology.  The Adventures of Hercules Mendoza is a reimagining of the classic story of Hercules and the Twelve Labors.   Except in this version, Hercules is a fourteen-year-old (almost fifteen) Mexican-American boy who lives in the rather nondescript Southern California town of El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego.  His father has recently remarried, some three years after the death of Les’ mother (by the way, he prefers that you call him Les and not Hercules; you’ll understand why when you meet him), and the arrival of this strange new woman changes everything for the worse.  His father seems different, and their relationship is growing more difficult and confrontational day by day.  Furthermore, Les is convinced that this new woman does not like him, even though she pretends artfully enough whenever his father is around.  He has the distinct feeling that she would prefer he were somewhere – anywhere – else.  Naturally, he can’t stand her. 

El Cajon, if you don’t mind me deviating briefly, is Spanish for ‘the box.’ If you’ve ever been in El Cajon (perhaps passing through on the way to San Diego, like most of us half-baked Arizonans), you may have noticed that the town is hemmed in by hills and mountains on three sides, thus the name El Cajon.  However, the idea of boxes, and being boxed in, and how to break out of the boxes we occasionally find ourselves in, or put ourselves in, happens to be a central theme in the novel.  Purely serendipitous choice of location, as it turns out.    

By now you may be beginning to wonder where the Greek mythology comes in, as the story seems to concern itself primarily with the adolescent angst of young Les Mendoza.  Well, hang on now; don’t get your chiton in a twist.  Even though the story is set in contemporary, post-9/11 America, Greek mythology does play a powerful role in the book, exerting an undeterred influence on everything that happens to our pobrecito protagonist.  As if he didn’t have enough worries to keep him going, Les finds himself transported one day to a bizarre and barren realm, where he subsequently learns he has been given the opportunity (read:  he has no choice at all in the matter) to attempt the same daunting feats once accomplished by the great Greek hero himself.   

If only Les had been paying attention to all those stories about heroic Hercules that his aunt Lucinda liked to tell, and that he despised so much.

Well, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?

and he happens to be...

Imagine a man who has had a singing career, highlighted by singing the National Anthem before Super Bowl XX in 1976, an acting career that has spanned forty years, appearing on TV shows ranging from M*A*S*H to Touched by an Angel, made some 60 appearances as a guest on The Tonight Show, and spent five years working as a special correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America. Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about living a passionate life?

Imagine a man who graduated from Harvard, has written several books including a memoir that was made into a feature film (for which he also composed much of the music), and has spoken about his life to hundreds of thousands of people.  Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about living with purpose?

Imagine a man who has met and learned from Hellen Keller, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali.  Who has run the NYC Marathon, golfed Augusta, and been enshrined into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.  Would you listen to what a man like that has to say about meeting challenges?

Alright, admit it; you have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?

That’s okay.  Truthfully, I didn’t know any of this stuff either before I picked up a copy of his book.

Imagine that the man who has done all these things is blind, and has been almost since birth.  Would you be interested in hearing what such a man has to say about living a fulfilling life?  

Me too.

The man who happens to be blind is Tom Sullivan.  If you are a child of the 70’s, or even the 80’s, you undoubtedly have seen him.  He was ubiquitous on television during much of that time.  There he is.

Told you you'd recognize him.

Here's what he looks like these days:

In addition to appearing on many popular series in those decades, he was also a very frequent visitor on the talk show circuit:  Dinah Shore, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and of course, the king, Johnny Carson.  He did them all.  Even co-hosted with Douglas for a few weeks.

But I remember him particularly from one of his sitcom guest-star roles.  He played a blind businessman on an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.  The character, and Mr. Sullivan, have been lodged firmly in my brain ever since. 

Damn Passion

Walter Isaacson, the biographer whose book on Steve Jobs was such a sensation last year, made an interesting comment the other day that got me really cranked up at first.  He was recalling a conversation he once had with Jobs about passion.  “We talked about the fact that it isn’t just about your damn passion,” Isaacson reportedly said, “it’s about doing something larger than yourself.  It’s about serving this world, helping others.  So if you have a whole generation of people [who’ve been] told, ‘Oh, just follow your passion,’ they’re going to forget that there’s some purpose in life.”  

Of course, when the story was released, it went out under the somewhat misleading and certainly manipulative headline, “Isaacson:  It’s not just about your damn passion.”  When I first saw that headline, I was instantly incensed and had to know more.  Which goes a long way towards explaining why the media likes to be somewhat misleading and certainly manipulative. 

I haven’t read Isaacson’s biography of Jobs yet, although Elizabeth bought me a copy for Christmas last year (curse you, Dark Tower!), but I did read an earlier biography he wrote about Benjamin Franklin, which I thought was absolutely terrific.  In fact, based on that biography, I wrote an essay in which I compared Franklin to the game of baseball.  I know that probably sounds weird, especially seeing how Franklin predated the game by fifty or sixty years, but trust me, it was a good essay, and it made a valid point somehow about the balance between individual and community.  If anyone’s interested, I’ll clean it up and post it sometime.  I should do it anyway, if only because I find the visual image of Franklin in a Phillies uniform holding a bat irresistibly entertaining. 

Anyway, for the record, I agree completely with Isaacson when he basically equates serving others as being a person’s highest purpose in life.  I actually believe that.  But I also believe that passion has a place, an absolutely necessary and integral place, in how to best serve others.  Let me give you an example from my own experience.  I spent four years as a teacher.  I changed careers at thirty-eight because I thought I was finally ready to respond to my highest calling, which I believed was to teach teenagers how to improve their reading and writing.  For those four years, I served those high school students as best I could.  I loved and cared about the students that I taught, and I loved and cared about the people that I worked with.

Yet, by the end of those four years, I was more miserable than I had ever been in my life.   It took a lot of soul-searching, but I finally figured out that, without passion, serving others can still lead to unhappiness – profound, existential unhappiness.  Even though I loved almost everyone I was around, I was miserable being a teacher.  I had no passion for teaching.  Not in a classroom.  Not that way.

My passion lay elsewhere.

Now, maybe there’s just something wrong with me.  Trust me, I’ve considered that possibility often.  But from that experience I learned that you can’t force yourself to serve a higher purpose; it has to be done willingly.  In fact, pure passion is about the only thing that will get me to willingly do more than I absolutely have to. 

During an interview I did with Dorina Groves a few months back, she showed me a tattoo on her arm which says, “Purpose produces passion.”  I think many of us, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Isaacson included, would agree with that basic premise, if not perhaps the idea of stitching it into your skin for all eternity.  But I also think the opposite is just as true, that passion produces purpose.  I think the two are inextricable.  I think that passion exists to lead us to our purpose, to lead us to a greater awareness of our unique reason for being here, and to lead us to discover the work that is ours to do.  Whether you start with passion or start with purpose isn’t anywhere near as important as just starting. 

Dark Tower: Roland Lives!

The following is dedicated to Roland Deschain.  May your quest bring you peace, gunslinger.

A number of strange things have been happening to me over the last several weeks, all of them connected in some way to the Dark Tower series of books by Stephen King.  This happens sometimes when I immerse myself too long into someone else’s world; I tend to fall under the influence of its gravitational pull until I am orbiting around it like a trapped satellite.  And this is such a long series of books, many thousands of pages.  It has taken me the better part of a year to read them, which has both prolonged the effect, and made it more pronounced.

At least this is the reason I am giving myself for the strange recent occurrences.   I have been tarrying too long in sai King’s world, I explain to myself; that’s all it is.  All I need to do is finish the last book, and then allow time and distance to break the magic spell of gravity, and free me from its hold.    

But, for the time being anyway, the character of Roland Deschain, the gunslinger, has besieged my mind and infiltrated my imagination.  These things I’m about to relate have more to do with him than anything, I suspect.  The character whose quest for the Dark Tower is documented in these books is so vividly drawn, so profoundly flawed and yet so powerful, that I have found it hard not to believe in him.  This, of course, is reason enough to finish the last book as quickly as possible, and then wait patiently to try and reclaim my rightful place in reality.   

Before I can do that, though, there is some painting and some tiling that must get done; yes there is...but now I’m putting the cart in front of the horse.

The first notably odd incident was last month.  It was a sleep-in day for me, so it was seven by the time I rolled out of bed.  I was the last one to wake up, and I could hear the television in the back room as I slumped down the hallway.  For once, our black lab Chubby was not creating a one-dog obstacle course in front of me as I walked, which could only mean they must have fed her already, and let her out.  Thankee-sai for small miracles, I muttered, not noticing my unusual choice of words, or recognizing that it was unusual, until later.      

Elizabeth was standing at the stove, making breakfast for the kids. 

“Mornin’,” I said, rusty-voiced.

“Good morning,” she said, turning and smiling.  “Would you like some eggs?”

“No, thanks.” I leaned drowsily against the counter.

“The coffee’s fresh,” she said over her shoulder, having returned her attention to the eggs.

“Thankee-sai,” I said reflexively, pushing leadenly off the counter and crossing the kitchen to where we kept the cups, and the coffee.  “What time did the girls get up?” I asked, pouring myself a cup, and carefully lifting it to the table. 

“Maria wandered out here about a half-hour ago; and you’d have to ask Jess, because she was up watching TV when I got back from the gym.”

“At six o’clock?” I asked, sinking slowly into one of the kitchen chairs. 

“Uh-huh.”  There was disapproval in her tone.

“Well, I guess at least she won’t have trouble adjusting to her schedule when school starts up again.”  It was less than two weeks away from the start of the school year; I was tracking it very closely.

“I guess.”  She sounded doubtful.  “Would you like creamer?”

“Sure.”  When Elizabeth said ‘creamer,’ she was talking about the condensed, exotically-flavored liquid stuff in the fridge.  Normally, I would just mix two teaspoons of sugar and some plain powdered cream in my cup, but that would require getting up again since I had forgotten to do it while I was standing by the coffee maker.  “How’s Maria?  Still sneezing?”  Maria had caught a head cold, with congestion and a runny nose, except that instead of coughing, she would go into these extended sneezing fits.  Then each of us began to have them, although whether it was catching or just the power of suggestion was impossible to say.

“Haven’t heard a thing this morning,” she said, handing me the cold plastic bottle of cinnamon-caramel-vanilla macchiato.

“Thankee-sai,” I said, reaching for it, but she pulled it back quickly.

“Alright, what is that?” 

Dark Tower: ka and ka-tet

I’m in the middle of something I never thought I’d be doing:  reading Stephen King.  His Dark Tower series, to be specific.  If you had told me a year ago that at this time I’d be knee-deep in Stephen King novels (literally; I stacked them up the other day and they came to my knee cap, and that’s not even including the one that just came out, The Wind Through the Keyhole), I’d have said that you’re fruitier than a box of Harry and David Royal Riviera pears, nuttier than the pecan pancakes at Cracker Barrel.  But here I am, some 2,000 pages in, and there’s no turning back now.  In the world of the Dark Tower, there’s a word for such a thing: ka.

The basic story follows the quest of one man, Roland Deschain, who is seeking this mysterious and foreboding Dark Tower.  In the beginning, and for a long time after, we don’t know what the Dark Tower is (a place? a thing? Donald Trump’s office?), nor do we know why Roland is so anxious to find it.  What is clear is that he will stop at nothing, and will allow nothing to get in the way of achieving his goal.  It’s a lot like Moby Dick, except Melville doesn’t make you wait until page 200 to give you the first clue about why Ahab is maniacally pursuing this certain white whale.    

At any rate, in Roland’s world they have this thing called ka.  It’s like fate, or destiny, or The Force, or the will of the universe, or God, or Stephen King’s bank account, or something, and it plays a part in everything that happens to Roland.  Just like in our world, some people believe in it, and many people don’t.  Roland accepts the existence of ka, and even though it imposes great tragedy and suffering on him, he relies on it to know that it can lead him to this Dark Tower, where he must…do something.  I still don’t know; I’m only just starting the fifth book in the series right now, The Wolves of the Calla (and by starting, I mean I’m on page 175 of 900 or so).  There are two more volumes after this, and so far each book has been longer than the one before.  It’s like one of those hallways in your dreams that just keeps stretching longer and longer, and the more you run, the farther away the end of the hallway gets; which, now that I think about it, is a very fitting, King-like metaphor (I keep thinking of that scene in The Shining).

What themes may come...

As friends of the blog know, my older daughter Jessica and I have recently begun to read the Harry Potter series.  Yes, I know, as impossible as it sounds, we hadn’t read any of the books or seen any of the movies until the last few months.  The main reason is that my daughter is easily frightened, which is both blessing and curse.  So far, it’s been mostly curse, because it’s severely limited the rides she’s willing to go on at Disneyland, in addition to the movies she’s willing to see with me, but I fully expect it to become a blessing once boys start entering the equation.  In anticipation of that day, I’ve done my best to make dating sound really scary so far:

Jessica:  So, Dad, is going on a date really scary?

Me:  Horribly, terribly, ginormously scary.

Jessica: Boys are that bad?

Me:  Rotten, evil, scary, stinky monsters.

Jessica:  Is going on a date scarier than Splash Mountain?

Me:  Way scarier.

Jessica:  Is it worse than Thunder Mountain Railroad?

Me:  I don’t even have words to describe how much scarier dating is than Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Jessica: Worse even than Space Mountain?  Space Mountain is that one that goes in the dark, right, Dad?

Me:  Yes.  Listen to me.  Going on a date with a boy is scarier than all the mountains in Disneyland put together, even if you had Freddy Krueger sitting next to you, and Leatherface and Jason behind you, and the ride broke down, and you were all alone, stuck there for hours; well, it wouldn’t be for hours…

Jessica:  Who are they, Dad?

Me:  Who?

Jessica:  Freddy Krueger, and Jason, and the other one you said. 

Me:  They’re all boys, sweetie.  Exactly the kind of people you don’t want to know.

Hello Freddy!
Well, I didn't want to scare her too much! 

Letting go or losing control?

I’ve spent some time on this blog ruminating over the concept of “letting go,” what it means, and its implications on how to live.  Lately, I’ve been thinking about where the line is between letting go and losing control.  This is because one, they are two very different things, and two, I feel like I’m having trouble telling the difference.

As I see it, letting go is all about realizing that the control we instinctively want to exert over our lives and fortunes is largely an illusion.  Ask anyone who’s been through Hurricane Katrina, or in a severe car accident, or is living with cancer, or Alzheimer’s, how much control we really have over the things that happen to us in our own lives.  And, in a way, it’s a misguided notion anyway, because I don’t think the goal of the game we’re playing is “the person who most successfully controls their own life wins.” That kind of implies that the person who is able to live under a rock the longest without being found would have the best life.  I hope that’s not the case, because if it is I just threw away my shot at the title.