911 Resumption of Whately Prep p.60

A path through woods in June.    dee

I am at the site that Julia reported having found an abandoned grey car. There is no car here.  I wonder if the stress of recent days is starting to weigh on her.  It’s a shame when people can’t handle what life throws at them.  I offered to come check it out, but that’s as far as I go.  Julia called the state police so I am sitting in my truck spinning the channel selector to a country western station.  Waiting for the big guns. Give me some of that country heartache crooned with a Southern twang.  I am getting impatient waiting.  What's more, I bet if Carl hears anything about this supposed trespasser, her will come down here to check it out.  I keep expecting to hear the crunch of his tires. Damn, Carl.  He always has to but into things that are none of his business. Guaranteed that if anything goes wrong it’s going to be due to Carl poking his nose into it.  

The more I think about it, the more I know I have to play his game. I climb down from my truck and pace the area, searching for clues.  Julia said she had placed rocks behind the wheels, hoping to slow down whoever’s vehicle this belonged to.  I find the rocks, the tire tracks and oddly, some random receipts from Wendy’s and McDonald’s.  The tracks appear to head to the River. 

I take the short walk from the cemetery to the River.  June has brought the foliage to life.  The path, normally a car’s width all the way to the River, is protected by the heavy umbrage of overgrowth.  Light, that has turned green as it passes though the pines, the sumacs and the willows, is filtered, leaving the path feeling like a tunnel.  I have to hold back branches and part plants on occasion.  I had forgotten how eager nature is to reclaim what is hers’.

Before I reach the River, I see the water moving. The current is slow because it has been a dry June.  I used to swim at this exact spot as a boy.  There is a small islet about 100 yards off-shore.  When we were young and daring and stupid, we would swim that distance.  I shake my head to clear it of the past.  My present weighs on me, though I try hard to avoid contemplating what I have done.  I know I have sold my soul to the devil. Having committed numerous illegal acts, I can not expect redemption. I play a complicit role in something evil and wrong.

My eye is drawn to a glimmer, brighter than sunlight reflected on the water.  As I get closer, I wonder, “What on earth?” 

As I get closer, I can see through the murky water of the Connecticut water; there is a car almost completely submerged in the water. Only a tip of the hood is exposed.  Sunlight is drawn to it.  Immediately, I radio it in.   

As I make the call, I pull my wallet, cell phone and glasses out of my pockets.  Before they hit the ground, I am diving in.  Someone might be in the car.  Underwater, I can barely see my hand in front of my face.  The passenger side doors are both locked.  When I try the driver’s side is, too.  I see a head resting on the driver’s side window. I have to go up, suck in air, then down again.  Using my the Maglite that is clipped on to my utility belt,  I swing the heavy flashlight and manage to shatter the safety glass. It stays curiously intact because of the water pressure holding it fixed.  I punch through the glass with a second strike and the glass floats, rather than falls, away.  I am able to unlock the driver’s side door.  I pull the door open, the resistance of the water slows me down.  I am beginning to feel burning in my chest, and have to surface.  A quick gulp of air and I am back down.  The body -- male? female? - has fallen half-out of the car.  I notice the face is an unhealthy white.  Never-the-less, I scoop my arms under the person’s arms with his or her face turned away from me.  I use my legs to push off from the frame of the car, bearing my load to the surface.  When I break through the water, Carl is there. He takes over and hauls the body to shore, dragging it across the small beach where kayaks and canoes often put in.  I am exhausted. I reach shore and stay on my hands and knees for several minutes. I am hungry for air and can’t get enough.  My chest feels uncomfortably tight, but I don’t want Carl to know.  He is performing CPR.  I file away the fact that he is proficient in this lifesaving technique.  The pain in my chest is intruding on my ability to watch him.  I change position by sitting on a rock, taking quick, short, shallow breaths until the emergency medical technicians arrive.  They seem more concerned about me than what is, by all appearances, a corpse that I found in the car.  I am the one they strap to the gurney.  I am who receives an open line of Ringer’s Lactate.  I am the one on the way to Cooley Dickinson with an oxygen mask securely over both my nose and mouth.  This was not the way things were supposed to go.  Not at all. 

Life Lesson on Coming Home Day 365

A paperweight seen at Silverscape Jewelers in Northampton, MA

There are many ways to come home.  We can tap into the collective consciousness of images that have been portrayed in the books we read and the movies we watch to imagine them.  There are so many ways to come home.There is the soldier, walking the long, dusty distance from the road to his house with valise in one hand, cap in the other.  There is the mother, cradling her new-born child mounting the steps of her front porch.  There is the child, shouldering his backpack, pulling open the the screen door.  There is the husband stepping into a still, quiet house calling, “Honey? I’m home.”  And there is completing a year's worth of daily blogs. I cranked out short, 500 word essays in order to fulfill a pledge made when imagination and capriciousness were both plentiful and easy to summon.

My journey began with words written on September 4, 2011: 

I am inviting you to join me on this adventure. Three years ago, I turned fifty. I enjoyed a pleasant dinner with my husband and another couple. Later, I wished I had made more out of the occasion than putting on mascara and pearls. Using the book "Julie and Julie" as a model, an inspiration was fomenting. The idea was unwelcomed and yet, appealing. After all, I had the staying power to "do" the entire Course in Miracles (a program of self-awareness that integrates your daily life with the presence of that of a Greater Being). Yes, it was a year course and it took me eighteen months. However, the point is that I had the intention to complete such a task ... and I did so. On the eve of my 53rd birthday, once again, I feel the need to make a grand gesture on a scale that fits my world and my abilities. It is unlikely I will hike Machu Piccu, travel to the Antartica, or even see the Russian steppes. However, I can reread Dr. Seuss's treatise-- Oh, the Places You Will Go-- and reflect upon that question. I can dig out my high school copy of Voltaires's Candide; I will rediscover Candide's voice when he utteres his opinion that, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin." In other words, before we reach out to "fix" the world beyond our immediate environs, we must first take responsibility for caring for our own gardens.

This journal is exactly how I will cultivate my own garden. For one year, I will keep a daily log of my adventures. My great-grandfather was a sea-captain. He maintained careful logs on his Atlantic passages. They helped him to arrive at strategies to better navigate the next voyage and the next. So... I will take a page out of his log and begin my own. I invite you to come along.

My journey concluded September 5, 2012.

I did it.  I made it home. I wrote 365 entries, of which 59 of them were pages in a serialized novel.  It has been more difficult than I imagined to have the discipline to take an hour and a half daily to write coherent words. I had not imagined the content or the direction my words would take me.  Having reached the anniversary of this blog, I feel less of a sense of accomplishment than I thought I might.  Here is the embarrassing truth, I watched the numbers of views (last view, 13,008) closely. It was the comments and mounting numbers of views that kept me on the path of production and each day. I did not receive money or acclaim, but the satisfaction that faceless readers in Latvia and Russia and Mississippi and Massachusetts took time out of their days for me?  Well, that was an amazing gift.  

I am left with the question of what comes next.

My plan is under development.  A few day breather is essential.  Then, I suspect, back to the boards.  I will post the continuing plot of Whately Prep on a blog entitled
Whately Prep: a novel of mystery, revenge, and intrigue. http://whatelyprep.blogspot.com     I will transfer all the past blogs related to 
Whately Prep to that site for those of you who would like to start from the beginning.
A New Dawn is comprised of short, sometimes quirky essays about life. www. anewdawn.blogspot.com
Dawnings  - a collection of longer, more in-depth essays are located athttp://www.dawneliseevans.com

Lest, this seem complicated and incredibly prolific, I do hope to simplify and streamline eventually, but for now, it works best that are three different blogs offering three different kinds of writing.  Ultimately, of course, it's all me.  I hope you have enjoyed getting to know me. Please, keep the comments coming. Your words, suggestions and thoughts have been, and remain, ample motivation for this writer.

Be well --
Dawn

Mrs. Dickinson Whately Prep p.58

dee

My name is Mrs. Dickinson.  I know this information. I repeat to myself, “My name is Mrs. Dickinson.”  I am not able to retrieve many aspects of myself.  The past is curiously present.  The present is lost in an impenetrable haze.  What I ate this morning, who visited yesterday or what I did last week are lost to me.  I try to hone in on them but short term memories are amorphous and slippery, lost to me.  The distant past welcomes me. I know the prognosis. My mother retreated from the present, then was lost in the past.  She forgot my name, her name, how to dress, how to speak, how to eat, then finally, how to breathe.  It’s strange, but there is still a piece of me alive inside, the Observer.  The Observer is part of the Hemlock Society.  Bad planning makes it a moot point.  This morning I woke up with the gift -- or the curse -- of utter clarity.  

I am in this expensive hotel of death waiting for my time.  I understand my circumstances but don’t have anyone here at this moment to express my desire to end my life.  These brief windows of lucidity are getting more and more rare.  The nurses pat my hand and treat me exactly the same when I am rational and when I am irrational.  Honestly, I would try to escape this place so I could find a way to end it, but I am literally tied to this chair.  All the pleading in the world won’t convince anyone to untie me.  I am the crazy lady who wanders because she has Altzheimer’s. 

I saw Carl and Julia last night. I am glad they are back together.  His brown hair and broad shoulders looks so attractive beside her Jennifer Jones (the long-dead singer from the 50‘s that Marshall and I loved) looks. Long brown hair, brown eyes, high cheekbones and bow lips.  I always thought if her intellect slipped, Julia could be a model.  The symmetry in her face is what people like.  I have admired the plastic elasticity of her face that allows her to be expressive without uttering a word.

Carl asked me questions.  He asked me about how I came to marry Marshall. He asked about Marshall’s parents.  He asked some about Julia and what the first fifteen years of her life were like, but he asked more about the years from tenth grade to graduating college.  My answers were incomplete. It was so frustrating for me not to be able to tell him what he most needed to know.  Locked in my head is the story Julia needs to hear. 

It is harder and harder for me to hold all the pieces in my hands.  They are not mine any longer.  By the time the kids left, I was so agitated by what I didn’t know and couldn’t tell them that I asked a nurse for a sleeping pill.  Maybe the sleep of the dead is what has allowed me to think this morning.  The edges of my memories are shrinking. Quickly, I take my pad and try to write down a message.  I get so far as “Find the album in.....” and the words slip from my thoughts. I can see the album and where it sits on the shelf above my bed.  What house was that bed it? Who lives there now? And the questions overtake the answers and I can’t remember my name.  Maybe it is Mrs. Dickinson?

Chance meeting Whately Prep p. 57

dee

I leave my pick-up outside the front door of Sugarloaf Manor.  The smell of antiseptic, urine, aged bodies and their effluents assaults me as I enter the front rotunda.  The place looks like a four-star hotel. The decor is generic, but attractive. Reproduction antiques, reprints of Matisse’s and Monet’s works hang in neat rows going down the hall. There is a l large bulletin board with the names and faces of residents displayed in a colorful collage.  The smell of cauliflower, heavy and cloying wafts from the dining hall. It appears that most of the residents have gathered for their evening meal.  I eye the two rooms filled with senior citizens.  Most are women; many are in wheelchairs and powerchairs.  There is a sea of white heads when I look at the table rounds of diners.  I look for the Lucille Ball red that Mrs. Dickinson uses to dye her hair.  Find that head, and I will find her.  I do not find her.  When I walk down the hall to her room, I see she is seated, outside of her bedroom door.  An aide has cleared her tray.  Her head bobs slightly, her left leg appears to have a tremor.  

“You, you there, would you take me to the bathroom?”  

I am here because of an anonymous letter I found when I opened my bedroom door.  Someone had violated my privacy, entered my home, and left me an anonymous letter claiming that Mrs. Dickinson had information for me. I left the message untouched, on the floor, where it lay when I found it.  

I approach her cautiously, “HI, Mrs. Dickinson.  I’m Carl, do you remember me from Whately Prep?  Julia and i were good friends?”  Mrs. Dickinson turns to face me. Nothing like recognition shows on her face.  Then, suddenly, her face is transformed and it is glowing like a light filled vessel.  I follow her gaze to the room across the corridor.  I see a woman’s shapely legs, her face obscured by a bouquet of flowers.  She lowers the flowers to Mrs. Dickinson’s rolling table.  It isn’t until she does so that I realize that it is Julia.  

Follow the Money Whately Prep p. 56

June on Whately road                      dee

I read that the advice to “Follow the Money” is one of the most reliable predictors of success in solving crimes.  Crimes were committed here.  The police have not taken the situation seriously.  While they want to retain a good relationship with the school, they do not seem to be investigating the recent spate of events with any vigor or real concern.  I have come to the realization that to understand why the graveyard was violated, the swan was killed and butchered, and why I was threatened had to all revolve around money.  The question that remains is, “What money?”

I am running down to the River this evening. I am not going to stay caged in my office or my house, waiting for the next shoe to drop. I am not going to buy into this threat.  

I saw a brief glimpse of Kelly this morning as I walked to my office. I saw her figure but she did not linger.  I missed the reassuring comfort of having her seated in my office while I worked.  Now, I do not expect to see her.  I feel just slightly deranged, off-balanced. I have not slept well for nights.  It shows in my face, I noticed the circles under my eyes in the hall mirror as I headed out the door to put sneakers on for my run.  

This run will let me blow off steam and recalibrate myself.  I need the breathe.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Now I feel the rhythm of my legs as each foot strikes the ground and my arm churn the air. Forward.  Faster.  I push myself until I feel the pulse throb in my temple, then hold that speed.  All thoughts are forced out of mind by this concerted effort to drive forward using my own power.

A small grey square of metal begins to come into view through the cover of verdant trees and overgrowth.  Each step forward, it grows larger.  I see the hood of a car emerge, parked in a fire lane that runs beside the cemetery.  That makes no sense to me.  I check for the cameras up in the trees that have been trained on the graveyard to watch for suspicious behavior.  They are in place.  I wave at them, look at my watch, then hold up six fingers, point to my watch.  A kind of time stamp, of sorts.  Cautiously, I walk over to the grey Toyota Avalon.  The license plate has been unscrewed from the back; there is none on the front.  I vaguely recall seeing the car before. There is a Whately Prep parking sticker on the passenger side back door.  It belongs to the community somehow.  And the owner?  That worries me.  I weigh my options.  It seems overly dramatic to call for help at this point -- though in my lifetime, I have never seen anything but a service vehicle down here.  I hesitate to try the handles in case they need prints.  I decide to finish my run to the river, if the car is still here when I return, I will report it when I get back to campus.  

It is impossible to get back into the groove.  I try.  I am skittish.  Can’t identify any real threats, but I am feeling very vulnerable, alone, out here in the woods.  Then I am angry that someone has robbed me of the peace that my River runs usually restore to me. 

Disgusted, I turn and march all the way back to Whately Prep.  Someone is going to have to account for this situation.  

The Bedroom Whately Prep p.55

Julia is waiting for me.  I have moved through this day like an automaton that was programmed long ago. I go through the motions. Review cost, schedule manhours on jobs, inventory supplies left from the school year.  It is a matter of making a list at 8 a.m. and putting checks next to each task until 4:30 p.m..  That is how I get through this day.  When I walk across the campus to my house, I know exactly what I will find.  

Julia will be upstairs, stretched out on the bed, her face cradled in my pillow, the pillow cradled in her arms.  She will be wearing something dusty rose or mauve or beige that covers her torso, leaving bare her shoulders, arms and half of her legs.  Her eyes will be open.  Always, open. She will be facing the window and the light will shower upon her, bathing her in illumination.

We have done this dance.

I read an author, Lee Child, who wrote about one of his characters that he subscribed to the “One Bullet” school of thought.  This theory contends that each of us gets just one, one great love, that pierces us to the core; it is a love from which we are forever and irreparably changed.  I subscribe to this belief.  I live it.  I met Julia when I was fifteen and she was turning fourteen.  She was it for me.  I had the common sense to let her come to me rather than scaring her off.  I had hunted with my father, how was this any different? When the bottom fell out of her world in high school, I was there for her.  She turned to me like a flower turns to rain.  

And even when that time together came to an end, I was not disconsolate.  I knew she was it for me.  We found each other again after college.  She had her lovers, I had mine, but they were not the one, the great one.  When two cars race, the observers never know who will blink first.  The racers do.  The person who cuts the wheel to save himself is the person who has the most to lose.  We were those racers. When it came time for me to ask her to marry me, I froze.  I thought I had too much to lose if she said, “No.” She asked me.  I never answered.  I packed my belongings and moved across the country, running scared as scared can be.

Julia picked up, brushed off her knees, and moved on. 

I was devastated by my own betrayal of myself.  Fear is a compelling reason to run. But after years of a deep sense that I was not whole, I returned. 

I returned to Whately Prep with a mere kernel of a hope that Julia would still want me. 

The malicious acts of violence over the past few days clouds our emotions. It crossed my mind at one point that Julia might consider that I have been orchestrating events.  After all, I seem to be the one benefiting most.  Conveniently, the woman I love is seeking my help and reassurance.

When Julia called me at noon and said she’d meet me at my house at five, I agreed without hesitation.  My prior plans to have dinner with local friends, be damned.

I notice I am slightly breathy when I arrive at the front doors to my home.  I lift the latch on the left, the key on the right is purely decorative.  I step inside, seeing dust motes dance on beams of light that enter through the transom over the door.  The long central hallway makes a sharp right and the stairs ascend to the second level.  My hand slides up the bannister -- the bannister has worn smooth, almost silky after all these years. With my hand on my bedroom door, I pause just a moment, then enter.  

Cole Potter Reveals a Secret Whately Prep 54

The Springfield branch of Bank of America does not open for another ten minutes.  I want to be back in Whately by 9 a.m. so that I am not late for work.  Hopefully, I can go in, cash the check and be headed north without much fuss.  The check in my wallet feels like blood money.  Well, quite literally, that is exactly what it is.  

When I first received an anonymous email pointing out that I was not fiscally sound, I deleted it.  The second, third and fourth arrived on consecutive days.  Each of the emails was worded slightly more threateningly.  The fifth one was the first to mention that there was a way out of debt.  I owe $26,000 on the Toyota pickup I drive. I owe $12,300 on a bank note, My wife has racked up nearly $28,300 in credit card debt.  wShe’s used to living large in Texas. Finally, the one debt of which I am most ashamed, there’s my mother; I owe my mother the $20,000 she gave me toward a down payment on the condominium.  The mortgage on the condominium is $75,600. My salary of $36,800 does not stretch very far.  My job at Whately Prep pays reasonably, has good benefits and most importantly, it gives me an identity.  

I received the first email in the beginning of June.  I tried tracing the server through which it was routed, but it was a blind route.  No chance of locating an IP address. It was not until the second week of receiving provoking emails that I seriously entertained the possibility of assessing what the sender was proposing.  I suppose that was the beginning of the end.  

I have lowered myself lower than any man wants to think he might.  I have lied, outright lied, to people I care about all to make a dime. In the bright light of day, it hardly seems like I was thinking rationally.  When I came to a yes, it was carefully  considered. I spent sleepless nights lying next to my wife, wide-eyed and desperate about the possibility of retaining my reputation, my belongings, my career.  Easy money?

No, I wouldn’t say this has been easy money, but it has been good money.  I haven’t stolen. I haven’t hurt anyone.  I had no idea Gillian’s ticker would give out like that. Nobody could say I was responsible.

I think if I ever had to defend myself, I could simply say it was necessary.