Atmosphere

My strategy had been simmering in the back of my mind after I hung up with her, the appointment made. Grace made it so that my mentor, the great verbal manipulator, was on and this time it was all about him. Running in the basement alone in the house our eyes locked, even though he didn't know, and the strategy boiled away. My immature giddiness about these things is trumped only by his.

Driving down the crowded highway in the still black morning, I had Jay-Z as loud as the car would stand, him helping me put my game face on. This is what I'm good at as I caught a reflection of myself under the passing lights. Hunting. Turn me on she arrived early and I could see her sitting in her car in the parking lot. Deep breath in and out, steeling herself, I thought. I made her wait when she found the resolve to come in.

We sat down in calculated silence, her eyes were red and half-shut and belied the strength that she wanted to display in the rest of her face. I flipped the switch on inside, and it was me watching me on the treadmill, removed and distant, with script in hand. I read it. And it worked, and it was instead of like a chess game more just like taking the chess board and throwing it across the room, having no need for it but wanting to hear the sound of it crash against the wall. She was scribbling on the piece of paper I had readied, and I noticed that her hand shook. My lips let loose bits of compassion and empathy, and I laughed cynically to myself that yes, that too was part of the script. When the door closed and she freed herself into the cold dawn air I could not put away the cheshire cat as he spread himself across my face, baring all of my teeth. And the teasing that followed, and that I did not care.

And that I got an atta boy from the one man who still intimidates me there. That it could be so easy to put such a thing together, but that it could still be appreciated.

And I do believe that our hands could wash each other's and that not one speck would remain. And then, and then. If it takes you, then I hope it takes me too.

But my God, how lucky I have been.

It's, just

Be firm, be men of good faith, let thy will be unyielding. Do not waver, do not let thyself be easily persuaded. So much of this life is dust, ashes -- how can one be bothered by something so easily carried away by the slightest wind?

She looked in the mirror, said resolve yourself and before the glance could be reciprocated the flesh was steeled, gaze iced. How could one fail? All of this time that is spent internally, over thinking he used to say, you know where you want to be. And also, how to get there.

One foot in front of the other, with each step you remain true to yourself. Just, remember. He said, The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. My dad told me to measure myself by what I do when no one is looking, and by no other benchmark.

And to that, a quiet and lonely, Amen.

a quiet glory

The snow sublimated slowly into the late afternoon, shrouding the fields of cut hay and cornstalk stubble in a pervasive fog. That not even the sun could dissuade. There was a black and yellow sheriff's car in the middle of the intersection, blue and red lights made eerie in the pressing haze. He stood in the road and waved us around, a circuitous detour when I just wanted to get home, directly. She told me who was there, just beyond the fence, and what they were doing. Parsing metal and wire from flesh and bone, blood mingling with mud and snow and gravel, a job to be done.

And later, what he said, how he described it. There was a look that passed over his face, and I traveled back in my mind to the death that I had seen, our cross to bear. The way he described feeling their souls watching, just above and over the shoulder, and all that you can do is offer up a prayer and hope that your hands can do what they are tasked with. The way it is almost embarrassing, as if you have trespassed on a very private moment in someone's life, but you have to be there. The body is still but the will shakes.

And as he described it I could not help myself but to say a greedy and jaded thanks, that there are those of us who heard the call, and answered it. That he was out there praying over the dead as he zipped the bag shut, that she runs like a tornado when her pager goes off with a working fire, that I will go in and put on my body armor without thinking about it. To the blessed few who know what it's like to feel faithful departed watching over your shoulder, to those who are called.

Fight or Flight

She had eyes like pieces of agate, that the sun makes dimensional so that you could stare at it for so long and never, not ever get to the end of it, the dark place where the soul coalesced. We set up in two long lines with me at the front and her facing, and me throwing out a preemptive joke, unable to retire my sense of irony, or deprecation, even while staring down such stoicism. I tucked my chin, like her, and iced my glaze and steeled my flesh, like her. She held the bags and swung wide and hard and fast my arm came up to counter and my weight sunk low and fluid into my knees and hips and quads, all the while our pupils locked in a kind of unspeakable balance for power. Control. For understanding.

At the end of it she talked about what was new and being offered and again, our gaze locked and there was a whole lifetime of conversation that passed between us, unspoken yet understood, and I knew, I knew. What makes a warrior, where is the place inside that decides that all begins and ends with the self, with the power of the soul, and the determination to never, ever be second best? How is it that such a vague and unquantifiable quality can be sensed, scented, recognized in the rare and isolated brethren? And then when he questioned her and my ears went red and hot and I could not help myself but open my mouth and yell across the blank expanse of our empty warehouse, and the held glance after.

Then, later. My forearm ached and when he told me I had a strong right hook I remembered how it happened. And later than that, even, a picture on a wall, after a hesitant longing, a calculated pause before an explosive embrace and me there, alone for a moment and looking, scanning, assessing, trying to take every small piece in for the larger picture in my mind which is, as yet, incomplete. And wondering how I got there, and with what luck it was that I could remain.

And the quiet open spaces of the road at night and driving home, and the darkness and the isolation which I covet more than any other possession. Later, in the early morning by then, and her telling me that she could never hurt anyone that she knew, and the incredulity of it, my utter disbelief. The wolf snarled and bared her teeth as I spat out that you should have a plan to kill everyone, with no disclaimers. That I tried but could not wrap my brain around the idea of living so passively. I dismissed it, easily, tallied her up as a fool, and walked on.

You are your own best investment, always.

To the hunters, may we always choose the former instinct over the latter.

Daybreak

I tried, but I couldn't. I didn't give it enough of me. Maybe. I stirred, and she found me, and I knew that she would not let me go again, not now, and I lay there with it sinking in as the new day crested, the dark of it. The light in my room, a pinpoint of resistance.

My mind wandered back to that early western morning and me waking up to him sitting upright and looking out. Looking at nothing, looking at a place two thousand miles away, the anxiety of it veiling his face in lines and veins and thickness. My breath expired with everything else in my waking, and the next surge of air was to an emptiness, a resignation. Sometimes we take on more than we can manage just to see how far we carry such a load. And then comes the moment of clarity when you remember yourself and you put it down, without thinking, you walk away, and on, and on.

She looks at me lately and there is something in her eyes, a memory floating like ghosts, something that passed between us though I can't remember when nor what it was. Flailing around in my recollection and I look away before admitting that it won't come back. That some things are just unknowable.

We are too early a thing yet for me to let go, completely. Though my body wills it so. But brain remains too stubborn to obey. The pieces moving around on a board as if I had enough left to see more than two moves ahead. The anxiety of change wells up in veins, and is passed off again into lungs to be released, and forgotten. I had a dream that we were in a hotel room and I looked at him, knowing what was coming, and told him I am going to need for you to trust me, and him looking back with those big eyes that one could get lost in, were it not for the dark. And him just replying, yes, of course, but without the need for words, without saying it. How perfect an understanding, I thought just before waking.

I tried, but yet I am still awake. With the clock ticking its thick tocks as I slowly slip toward daybreak, toward movement. I will learn by being led, later, but for now the world is still dark, and quiet. Familiar.

Spare change

All I ever really needed to know I learned from MacIntyre. Well, that's not true, really. But, maybe. He has affected my thinking in a way that nothing before or since has been able to match. Or even whisper by. So where does one turn, after virtue?

I threw my hands up, I think, to a certain extent. I listened to them debating, and my mind turned down its well-worn path; how can we be arrogant enough to think that values can be measured, or prioritized, or charted even, as if there were some scale that we could refer back to when the arguments become grey and murky and obfuscated. Freedom or safety, they ask. It is ridiculous to think that such a question could even be posed. The words jumped from the page and etched themselves in my mind like the reversed images of a camera obscura. For always. You win the day by being more articulate, turning a better phrase, beating your fists upon your chest and not stopping for air. You don't know what the words mean, but you like the way they sound when they roll off your tongue. You beseech your listener to remember her forebears, and with what spirit they endowed her, and the smoke and the mirrors on cue as you wave your arms and look back with conviction.

I turned it off. I put my layers on and meandered out into the cold blanket of white, again, and crouched down low to tell if it was fox or coyote track laid fresh. The deer are easy, and they are many. High above and far away a familiar bird song, that sounds like spring, and you wonder if he is confused, or just hopeful. Always knowing that the thaw awaits, even if we closer to the earth forget that everything changes, always.

So what do I do, Alasdair? I haven't read your other books thinking that I'd be able to come up with the answer on my own. Under a street light somewhere, gritty dark and cold, like He would find me in any one of the random encounters. There is no way to win the debate on virtue without first having a teleology. We are so foolish. So there is the spartan winter, and the beauty, at least, of being heard by someone more intelligent.

A quiet doxology

The woods were dark and lovely and lonesome and deep, snow crunching dry and light under each footfall, I turned every now and again to see my tracks laid deeply in the twilight of it. The wind swept winter's diamonds from tree branches, to the air, and down to the forest floor to be carried off again later, after my passing. Impressions along the path revealed that deer and rabbit and dog and ski had gone before, and I followed the animal path through the trees, into the plain, along the river and over trees that bridged the space between. I could not help but smile, could not help but feel my kid-heart overcome with the pressing beauty of it. Just knowing that you exist helps me to remember that I am never alone. I paused in my meandering to take the spartan cold into the very marrow of my bones, to keep the vision of it in my soul for the hot days filled with people, and places, and obligations. To not forget the perfect simplicity.

I wound my way back west and found myself saying an improvised and gritty prayer out loud, offering whatever I might have had for the remembrance of the evening. Passed my grandfather's bench, the ones their names are etched upon, passed sandstone crucifixes in stark contrast to the white of the world surrounding them. I thought about the path that had led me to that exact moment in space and time and continued on in my amateur benediction. God how lovely is the world, sometimes.

The call came and he opened with a joke to set my worried heart at ease and then told me day shift, and I soaked the news in, unsure of how to answer. Of course, yes, of course, how can one say anything other to such a man? The conversation ended and I lay in my bed, thinking. She tells me that it's overrated and I, of course, agree. My mind wandered to the darkness of night, and the figure-eights I had grown so accustomed to, and the people, the places, the unnatural somnambulism that I had taken as ordinary. That I had acclimated myself to. And now daylight, and people, and responsibility, and the semblance of normal life and a normal schedule. I had prepared myself for a long and lonely winter.

Well, perhaps not lonely...

I cut a wide and random path through the golf course on my way back home, as the idea of it settled in upon me. The sun had set and all was blue, the way the snow is at night. Beautiful. The rolling hills were undisturbed and I lost my depth perception and laughed when my legs navigated hills that my mind had not anticipated. I thought, how can a hunter be at the same time a poet, a mystic, a philosopher, a soul in need of a telos, a home? How can the two purposes not be mutually exclusive? I thought of my forebears, and their legacies, and the span of geography that binds us to each other and realized that, well, there must be a way, there is an answer that they had already discovered. And now, me.

And then, and then. How funny it is to feel longing. A stirring prurience. How strange and crazy and unexpected to feel so familiar so fast and for the brain to be so consumed despite the posturing of the will. I am vulnerable, and I had to laugh when I thought it, because, doesn't that make things so much more meaningful?

Blessed Father, guide me.

The new year's eve.

My eyes had not yet adjusted to the cold twilight outside from leaving the warm and glowing inside. The door slid shut, frost scraping gently in the track, and I fumbled my way in the dark. Alone, the world quiet. When I opened the lid a large breath of steam billowed out and I watched as it chased itself up above the treetops, into the frozen air. Climbing in, the body resolves itself, slowly, into the heat, like the letting go of a climax when tense muscles are overpowered, and useless. My eyes closed and I sank to the bottom.

I could hear the wind rustle dry, broken leaves down the valley. Hear them break free of their lofty heights and fall, icy, to the floor, the ravine. I heard the twig-snaps of predators, making their first rounds of the night -- one more hunt in a long and unyielding succession of their eking out. The flipping of a calendar page obscured by obligation, by survival.

And an owl. Far off in the distance, singing some song unknown to me, but more beautiful for its strangeness. My eyes had long made their adjustments, rods and cones in delicate balance, and the sky was a deep, dark blue beyond the near trees, and beyond the crest of a far hill.

I sunk lower into the hot water, to dissolve the frost from my cheeks, my hair, and at once became strangely aware of the warmth surrounding me, not a body alone in a spa but a globe of warmth in the center of a cold and snowy wood, the night spinning and slipping by. I opened my hand to reveal the one pebble I had held onto for the greater part of this year, and offered it up to the darkness of the sky, the cold. She told me, in her judicious and merciful harshness, that I had better cast it down into the ravine, and not take it with me down the path of this next year. That all I would need I contained, and there was no need to carry any thing. And with the pressing hush of the forest I let the stone loose and listened as it careened down sandstone bluff and ice-slick, and into the trickling water far below. I smiled.

Back inside and climbing into the shower a quick glance in the mirror and I was shocked to see that my entire head -- face, hair, cheeks, lips -- was covered in a fragile and delicate frost. But I hadn't felt the cold. I laughed. Maybe the casting off could endow a person with an unknowable impermeability? Maybe I was just a fool. But I was happy.

The night subsided into itself, and I lay awake in the dark, thinking, for a long part of it, but it didn't frustrate me as it normally does. My mind wandered, and was slow, and my body was grateful. When I fell down into the warmth of sleep it was to a new, but surprisingly familiar embrace, and to the unlimited loveliness of potential.

May we never stop at all.