p. 31-40

“Membership?” Yeats said.

“State of Utah requires a membership at a drinking establishment. Got to have it to purchase alcohol.”

“A waiting period too? Like buying a pistol?”

“See that door? Right in there. A few minutes is all.”

Yeats turned and headed for the door for his membership. A white and tan black horn pronghorn head was mounted on the wall above the door.

……………..

Mick and Dani headed north to Antelope Island, the radio played something by the Smiths, and though Morrissey’s voice fit the mood of the evening, Mick was making Dani laugh as he always had. Sheboygan jumped from side to side in the pickup bed sniffing at the wind.

“Take this exit Mick.”

“You got a dealer?” Mick said.

“It’s Utah Mick. Take a right. Now hang a left. O.K., slowly now, it’s the fourth house on the right.”

They pulled up to the curb and Mick threw the automatic into park. Dani said she would run up and see if Mia was home.

“Mia?” Mick looked perplexed.

Dani jumped out of the truck without reply and ran up to the door and rapped gently. After a few moments the porch light turned on and the door opened to a reveal a woman Dani’s age. Yeats would have classified her as a standard Mormon beauty: athletic build just like Dani, only Mia was a striking brunette with dark eyes and eyebrows. Dani and Mia hugged as they met under the porch light. Mick could see Dani gesture at the truck before they disappeared inside. Minutes later Dani re-emerged with a box in both hands and skipped down the stairs with a last look over her shoulder to Mia standing in the open doorway. Dani dropped the box over the sidewall into the bed of the truck and climbed into the cab. Mick was curious and looked over at Dani, shaking his head laughing.

“Have I got myself involved in a shady underground smuggling deal for the Mormon mafia? Who’d you meet up there?”

“My friend Mia.”

“Your friend usually have a box of beer on hand ready to go?”

“She gave us a few of what she calls her Desert Pale.”

“Your friend’s a boot-legger?” Mick gave a laugh of approval and pealed off the curb.

……………………….

Yeats had his membership and leaned into the classically shaped oak bar with his forearms crossed waiting to finish his purchase of twelve domestic beers at four dollars a pop.

“That’ll be $48 plus tax – $51.62. Kind of an expensive way to buy beer. You ever thought of buying your supply on a day other than Sunday?” The bartend said.

“I’m kinda in a pinch, thanks.” Yeats said, and put the box of beer on his shoulder and headed for the door. On the way out he eyed a red-billed, white mesh baseball hat hanging from the coat rack, embroidered with Old Style - just what a deliveryman needed. Yeats hustled back up the hill to the party laboring under the load. From a block away he could hear the noise of the crowd spilling out into the otherwise quiet neighborhood. The doorman wasn’t in sight. He knocked on the door and shouted his business.

“Beer delivery for Mr. Jerry Horowitz.”

The doorman’s voice responded from inside, only this time he sounded distracted, more of a reveler than a doorman by this point in the evening. “Come on in!” The doorman said. Yeats opened the door and was met by a now casual and half-distracted doorman caught in conversation. He waved Yeats through with little more than a glance. The house was well appointed, and on this evening filled with a crowd that looked as if they could be Earth hip shoppers at a farmers market in Santa Cruz rather than houseguests in a mansion, the front room furnished in a large red bacara rug. Yeats felt the dual scenario of opulent bravado and idealist artist. It was as if he had arrived at a protest of something important, like shutting down the School of the Americas, held in a Four Seasons, catered with lovely red wines and exotic vegetarian hors d’oeuvres. The most bohemian and seemingly self-important sat on the back porch and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes and made little eye contact. Yeats moved through the crowd with the box of beer on one shoulder all the while asking for Horowitz’s whereabouts. One of the party-goers pointed towards a wall and said “He’s in the kitchen.” Yeats wandered in the direction and entered through an open doorway into a well-equipped kitchen. Horowitz stood alone, bent over a gas stove-top tending to eggs that danced sunny side up on the skillet while he hummed a tune to himself. Yeats shouted, “Beer delivery!” Horowitz turned to see who it was with the best idea he'd heard all night.

“’Bout time somebody showed with beer. Nothing but red wine all night around here. Affected bunch. How’s trading me beer for scrambled eggs?”

“Deal Dr. H.” Yeats said and set the beer on the counter.

Jerry served two heaping plates of eggs and home fries from the skillet and brought them to the table and the two sat in the breakfast nook and cracked beers and Jerry said a blessing over the meeting and meal and they clinked bottle-necks. Jerry introduced a generous amount of Tabasco to his eggs and hungrily grubbed them, taking long swills from the quickly disappeared first beer. Yeats was having an impromptu late-night breakfast with an intellectual icon he'd known for years, and now, was sharing the intimacy of a meal at midnight. He thought he better take something more from this opportunity than a full stomach, but waited patiently for a natural opening to develop.

………………

Dani and Mick parked at the end of the Antelope Island isthmus and sat atop the hood of the F-150 drinking beer underneath the starry sky. The water of the Great Salt Lake was before them smelling salty and the moon reflected off the tops of the gently rolling ripples. An occasional airplane roared in descent to the nearby Salt Lake International airport.

“What’s a Mormon girl doing having a beer dealer and using her privileges on the Sunday of all days?”

“Mick come on. You know I’ve hardly been a stickler. I was raised by Hi Olson!”

“Except for a while back, when you were confusedly trying to find your identity, you’re right. Look up Jack Mormon in the dictionary and there’d be Hi winking at you.” Mick said.

“I think he’s always figured his strong lineage gave him license to do whatever he liked, without getting excommunicated.” Dani said. An extended silence passed between the two.

“Dani.” Mick said, followed by another elongated moment of silence.

“What.” He coughed and excused himself. “What are your dreams? Remind me, it’s been a long time.” Dani remained silent and Mick remembered out loud his own days in the past six years that she knew virtually nothing of.

“We used to sit out in the desert at night. Depending on the operations going, there’d be tracers that would light up the sky. But it’d always go black. Just stars – strange, these same stars.”

The mood was still quiet. Mick reached to put his arm around Dani. She pulled away.

“Mick, I need to tell you – I’m engaged.”

There was another long pause. Mick looked off into the night.

“Yeats told me. Where’s the ring?” Danielle sighed with a look of exasperation, as if she didn’t have the energy to confront the particulars of her life, much less the energy it would take to change directions.

“Mick.” She said with an intonation that indicated she was not ready for discussion much less inquisition.

“Who is this guy Chad?”

“Mick, you left, remember? And it’s not as if we had the Cinderella story to begin with.”

“Shit. What’s Sheb think of him?”

Dani’s eyes betrayed her thoughts.

……………………………

Yeats and Jerry had nearly finished their late night breakfast and had started in on the third beer. Primed with a couple beers Yeats was now ready for some dialogue.

“Dr. H. you said a lot tonight. The whole thing about the answer being right where you live, grass-roots action and all, but I mean, how is this done exactly? How can we hope to subvert the cancerous growth of the corporate machine that destroys local business, fanning out in endless consumer sprawl? The faceless damn sprawl that chews up the countryside, the places I live, my friends and family live, giving us miles of soul-less, faceless development – big-box stores, fast food restaurants. How do we keep ourselves and others from being hit by the clone machine?”

Jerry listened to Yeats without change of expression. He took the last bite of egg and answered with his mouth half-full.

“Do you know the origins of suburbanization in America?” Yeats shook his head. “A post World-War II phenomena.” Jerry took another swig of beer before wading into a discourse in socio-historical analysis. “Like so much of our modern day – constructed by the builder generation, every GI turned family man was promised a driveway and a backyard of his own. The 50’s were about the cloning of America. The Cold War years encouraged that we think the same, vote the same, behave the same, watch the same TV programs, buy the same clothes, raise our children the same. Same – same – same – down the line. Anything other than same and you were under suspicion of being a commie. HUAC would hunt you down and put you on the witch trial stand.”

Jerry used his hands to make points at the breakfast nook just as at the public lecture. Not only his hands, but the entirety of Jerry’s body got involved with his words. Discourse for Jerry was a holistic affair. With arms wide Jerry pointed to an imaginary door-frame, outlining the ninety degree angle of the casing down to the floor and providing caption for the invisible door: “Anti-American-Communist-Conspiracist it’d read over your jail cell door. Long before Dolly the Scottish sheep, millions of Americans were cloned by our government - our politicians, our public schools – without altering a single DNA molecule. And most alarming of all – no one seemed to care. Today the internet is more of the same, same march, only now it’s globalized. For millions it has become the primary source of information, communication and entertainment. It’s also the false wellspring from which people hope and depend for meaning, community and interconnectedness - relationship. Clinton called it our new town square. A demented town square if you ask me. The culpability of the individual lies in passively accepting this stamped out, top-down, clone culture. Resistance is only a part of the antidote. Opting out of the life-cycle is not an option. To be human, to be truly and fully human, is to be a cultivator, a pagan, a country dweller who tills the land and makes the desert bloom. Living in community, helping, sharing with your neighbor.”

Jerry was worked up by this merry rant and grabbed his fourth beer. It didn’t matter that there was only one other person in the room. It might have been a Madison Square Garden rally and his delivery and passion would have been the same. He was a showman, but by virtue of his passion and utter conviction, not a glory seeker. He continued in a more staid and serious tone, addressing Yeats in the eye, putting his hand on Yeats' forearm. “We do not simply evolve into the ideal humanity over time – that’s more insipid Hegel. It’s vital to remember that we get there intentionally and yet passively without sweat effort – we coerce by actively accepting what already is – in order to realize the perfect humanity. Evolution is a real thing indeed, but it has a hard time with the qualities of mercy and humility, all of the great virtues that we have known about since the ancients. These are realized by receiving. Receiving yourself and one another. Forgiving. Yourself and each other.”

Yeats had sat quietly, almost unmoved, with a swig here and there of beer, getting the rest of the lecture in the kitchen at a wee hour. A majority of the beers had been emptied and dawn was near, arriving with rosy colored fingers that gripped the jagged ridge of the Wasatch. Yeats stood on the stoop in the chilled morning air and looked back at Horowitz who stood in the open doorway with his bare feet upon the thick Turkish rug. The sunrays had begun their first assault for a new day and were peeking over the dark ridgeline to the east. A mist hung in the trees, reminiscent of the tall-pine country of the Southeast. The morning paper would be moist. Jerry stepped from the rug onto the brick stoop and enacted a ceremony of departure. He embraced Yeats with a gentle hug, bestowing his blessing, as if upon a postulant, and left Yeats with open handed hope, “See you out there kid.” Jerry said, and turned and closed the door behind him. Yeats plodded off down the brick path to the street and listened to the birds and was pleased to see the early light of day more hopeful and life-giving than any other time, and he wondered why he saw it so infrequently.

The next morning the brothers rendezvoused on the porch of the Glasnost Coffee House still too early for admittance. Neither had slept. Yeats looked forward to drinking coffee by rubbing his palms together and pacing back and forth within the space of three strides. Mick had his face in a Salt Lake Tribune and held a convenience store coffee housed in a travel mug free with purchase. Yeats looked at Mick wanting to recount their respective evenings.

“So, she’s engaged, right?”

Mick didn’t give a response.

“Isn’t the first time a girl was engaged to a shmuck. Question is how to win her back.”

“We all get dealt a hand.” Mick said coldly with little resemblance to the question. Self-pity takes all forms.

“Yeah, like Uncle Zinn used to say, either you got the high-hand or you bluff like you do.” Yeats reminded his brother of family wisdom.

“Platitudes. I don’t want a lecture.”

“Well, shit. What you need is to get your mind elsewhere ‘till you get over yourself. A little reptilian motivation would do you some good.”

Yeats and Mick entered the front doors of the L.D.S. Temple Visitor Center and looked around like gawking tourists. Mick was uncomfortable. He hated being a tourist and it made him irritable to not be in charge of a situation.

“You aren’t going to believe these tour guides. They make me want to believe all that bullshit about gods and goddesses populating planets.” Yeats said in anticipation.

The two joined the growing line for the next tour. They looked out of place standing in the crowd of overweight tourists on their way through Salt Lake to other destinations, stopping just long enough to glimpse one of America’s more bizarre religious marvels. The woman ahead of them, reading from a guide-book, declared the facts of Joseph Smith to her husband, who stood discreetly picking his nose clean, thinking about the Burger King he was hungering for on the corner of 2^nd and Temple. He responded with a “that is really something” type remark, while his little girl was busy tugging on his hand begging for a Mormon Pioneer action figure outfitted in calico print dress and a bonnet that concealed Aryan features. She held it up to her father for inspection. He entertained his daughters request with sincere half-interest, the way so many fathers do, distracted in their own thoughts and poorly equipped for occasions of multi-task, which parenting young children more often than not requires, fortified with the platinum attribute of patience.

The two temple guides arrived as beams of energy for the crowd of waiting tourists, as if angels sent direct from the hand of the golden angel Moronai. One was a blond, blue eyed, standard, the other an exotic Pacific Islander, both stunningly beautiful. The blond asked the crowd to make their way with her through the big double doors into the next room. The walls were colorfully adorned with religious murals depicting the Mormon story, a story that looked historically cosmic, as if the 19th Century figures had been painted in the acid strewn 70's. The informative portion of the tour had yet to begin when Yeats began swinging his hand overhead, begging to ask a question.

“Yes?” The blond guide politely called on him, anticipating an easy question.

“I was wondering - are we going to actually get into the Temple itself? That’s what we paid for, right? A Temple tour.”

“The Temple is open only to baptized persons of the LDS Church. We won’t be able to enter the Temple itself, but we’ll make certain you learn plenty about it!” She said brightly.

Yeats blurted out again, this time without permission, “What exactly happens in the Temple? I’ve heard some awful strange stories, secret ceremonies and the like. Any of that hold water?” Yeats said with shameless accusation, as if he might have been drinking too much.

“Sir, Temple weddings and baptisms. Now, if you’ll all follow me.” The angel's demeanor grew cold and curt before receding behind the usual bright curtain she wore across her face.

The Temple group was led into a large theatre shaped in the way of large format movie theatres of old. The theatre darkened slowly as house lights do and a film began with introductory words about the first Mormon followers in Elmira, New York. The faces of the crowd were lit in a white-glow by the moving reflections from the screen. Mouths were agape, eyes unblinking as the crowd took in the peculiar religious story.

When the lights came up in the theatre and the concluding credits rolled, Yeats had his hand raised, again waving impatiently. The guide was in mid-sentence directing the crowd to the next room when she saw his hand. She tried valiantly to ignore him but the persistent hand won out. She rolled her eyes and called on him.

“Yes? You have a question?”

“I’m still not exactly clear what goes on in the Temple. It’s not fertility rite stuff is it? I just didn’t know how far the parallels went, if they end with the Masons or if they include ancient Greek Temple practices too. But, you are saying no, nothing like Temple prostitution. Nothing like that?”

The guides did not look amused by this question. Their sour expression said it all.

“I just wanted to clarify. I’m sort of a Classics buff, Greco-Roman era and I want to get my facts straight on this particular period. Sorry if that’s offensive.”

Yeats tried to patch things up with his scholar comment, but this wasn't some ancient, buried religious relic site to be scholared over – this was here and now weird shit.

Mick elbowed Yeats several times and repeatedly told him to shut-up and that he should show some due respect and do them both a favor. Yeats asked if he should show some respect like Mick did, herding camels over sand-dunes in a Sheik’s ride. Mick blew the comment off with a sour look and followed the tour onward. Yeats knew he had gotten to him – but that wasn’t too dangerous, it was he who could hold a dear grudge, not Mick.

Yeats stayed behind putting some cushion between himself and the miffed tour-guides and Mick. As he fell behind the group he studied the strange murals and as he studied them he noticed many unmarked doorways off the main hallway. He thought he’d find a bathroom and tried the handle of one of the doors. The handle turned and he poked his head in cautiously not sure what he’d find. What he found was a roomful of beautiful females looking back at him, Temple guides waiting for their shift. The women’s repose was reminiscent of a Victorian brothel - harlots waiting for ‘johns’ in the backroom of the bordello. The guides were reclined bare legged and barefooted eating snacks and watching TV.

“Uh, hi. I hope I’m not interrupting. I was just looking for the john. Do you happen to have a local paper handy? Classifieds.”

“Do we have a paper?” One of the girls said.

A couple of the half-dozen girls in the room shuffled around the room looking for a paper.

“Yesterday’s alright?”

Yeats was caught like a deer in the headlights looking at the gorgeous woman who offered him a copy of the Tribune. He took the paper from her half-dazed and rifled through the sections until he found the classifieds and handed the rest back.

“Thanks. Would you like to populate a planet with me?” The guide looked back matter of fact, as if this kind of question was welcome and not at all unusual. “I’m sorry. I’m probably just overcome by the whole tour. If it’s all like this, then I’m seriously thinking of converting – really I am. Keep up the good work gals and thanks again for the paper.”

Yeats said, while gesturing with the rolled up classifieds section, and then he paused still, as if at a holy shrine, to take one more long look at the room full of girls. All eyes looked back at him and they were not offended eyes but the eyes of sirens, and he thought of Odysseus, and he thought that these creatures relished their sexual appeal that transferred to power. It was their one ace in the hole as Mormon women. Yeats peeled himself away from the room, which was no easy task without wax in the ears and twine to tie him to a mast that sailed away with him. And it would not have been possible were it not for the creepiness that went along with the allure. He intended to catch up with the tour that had moved well beyond him, and as he jogged down the high-ceiling, long white corridor, he marveled again in disbelief at the strange murals that stretched down the hallway. He spotted the group loosely huddled around the tour-guides who were mid-spiel, moving in next to Mick who stood on the fringe of the circle with his arms folded.

“Where the hell did you go?” Mick said.

“I needed to find a classifieds.” Yeats gestured with the paper.

“Why?”

“Looking for a car.”

“A car?” Mick said.

“How long do you think it’s going to take to win over Dani?”

“What?”

“I said, how -”

“I know what you said. What makes you think I want to try?”

“You have to. If not for your sake, then for her sake, for Christ’s sake. This Chad guy is a capital ass.”

“Why do you need a car?”

“Given the situation I figure it’s going to be a while.”

“Be-a-while what?”

“It’s going to take a while for you to do what you need to do. I won’t leave you here to do it alone. I’m going to need to get a job in the meantime. That’s where the car comes in. I wrote up a business plan a few years back. Figured if I could get the fuel cost down, I could make a profitable venture as a cabbie. Veggie fuel. With a few adjustments to a diesel, fuel can be as cheap as 40 cents a gallon. I don’t know why everyone isn’t doing it.”

“Because everyone’s not a nut-job.”

Yeats ignored the comment and took renewed interest in the gorgeous tour guides. The tropical guide was now talking and Yeats was mesmerized. His eyes had taken on a glaze.

“I’d really like to get into her past.” Yeats whispered to himself audibly. A long pause followed, and he adjusted himself noticeably. “Was she born into this kooky religion or was she brainwashed by eighteen-year-old missionaries? The Mormons sailed to the South Pacific figuring they were the most gullible. Pretty hard to convince a street-wise Jew from Boro Park this shit is true.” Mick didn’t have a clue what his brother was talking about and gave an idle response.

………………………

Dani was in the garden. The phone rang and she managed to snatch up the receiver interrupting the last ring. Chad was calling from the Salt Lake City airport as he walked through the concourse with his monogrammed overhead-size roller-luggage in tow.

“Hello.” Dani answered.

“Hi love. Listen, I just landed, thought maybe we could meet for lunch over at the Club. Are you free?”

“Um, yeah, that’d be fine. I just need to get out of these grubby clothes, but yeah.”

“An hour too soon?” Chad said.

“No, no, I can manage that. I’ll just clean-up.”

“Great, see you there. Love you.”

Dani hung up the phone and looked down at her dirty hands, wiping them off on her cut-off Levis. She turned and headed for the shower.

An hour later she pulled into the Country Club entrance and was met by a valet. Stopping at the front desk she gave Chad’s name and membership number. Dani was comfortably accustomed to the swank environment and she wore it well in pearls and bright linens. The maitre d’ escorted her to a table on the porch of the restaurant overlooking the tennis courts where Chad waited at a white table-clothed table conversing on his phone. He promptly excused himself from the conversation and rose and greeted Dani with a kiss and pulled the chair out for her to sit. Chad was a blond-hair, blue-eyed, athletic, charming man, dressed smartly in tennis whites, replete with a v-neck sweater vest. So wannabe WASPy and all-American middle-class the Mormons strained to be.

“Hey, gorgeous. It’s good to see you. You’re more beautiful than I remember.”

“How was your trip?” Dani deflected softly.

“Very promising. I’ll tell you, the discount retail business is cut-throat. No surprise there. The Kinder edge is that we have a very loyal, like-minded team of executives. Being united reaps exponentially. Nothing like a close-knit family business.”

“Just so happens it’s a 13 million member family and growing.” Dani said with humor. Yet there was something eating at her.

“Are you O.K.? You seem a little, I don’t know, not yourself.”

“I’m fine Chad.”

Chad, satisfied with this answer, launched energetically into explaining why Kinder was such a fierce retail competitor. Such as ninety-nine percent of the management was from the Salt Lake Valley, B.Y.U. graduates constituting a majority of this, and it was a close-knit inner circle with a common purpose and a common identity that persevered like the persecuted Pioneers who had made their way across the rugged West a hundred-fifty years prior. This spirit endured, only now in the world of high-finance business.

“Speaking of family businesses, Olson and Sons has finally had it.” Dani informed flatly.

Chad met this confession with a perfunctory ‘I’m sorry’, while simultaneously leafing through the Wall Street Journal.

“Hirem just doesn’t have the energy to compete the way he needs to.” Dani said.

“And I suppose it can hardly continue as Olson and Sons without a son.” Chad quipped.

“What does that mean?” Dani said.

“Well, just that Hirem and Abigail never had a son to take over the business.”

“So?”

“So, it’s hardly Olson and Sons without a son.”

“Chad, don’t start.”

“What, babe?”

“You know damn well, what babe.” She said with emphasis on the what.

Just as the conversation was heating for explosion a waitress who knew them as regulars arrived ready to take orders.

“Hi Chad, Dani, what will you be having today?”

Chad deferred to Dani with a gesture but Dani needed another moment and the attention of the server turned back to Chad. He ordered the steak sandwich, green salad and a sparkling water. Dani settled on a chicken salad and ice tea. The server finished writing down the order and took the menus in polite manner and excused herself, relieved to leave the tense air that had settled at the table.

…………………………….

Following events at the Temple tour Yeats caught a cab to the Salt Lake City airport in pursuit of the car he had circled in the paper. He wandered around the used car lot weaving through retired rentals in excess of 20,000 miles, up for sale at bargain prices considering the relatively low-mileage. Yeats considered that if other people drove a rental like he drove a rental they should give the cars away, the way used and abused greyhound racing dogs are given away to rescue homes. But some sucker ready for a novel deal always takes them. A few odd beaters sat amidst the uniform rentals like lost mutts among pure-breds. Yeats approached the silver ’84 240 sedan, the one circled in the paper. A lime green official looking sticker was posted in the upper right corner of the windshield: $600 Cash. With startling volume a salesman intercepted Yeats from behind.

“What can we do for you today?” The salesman said putting out his hand for a shake.

“I’ve got my eyes on that Volvo. It’s a diesel?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“It runs?”

“Like a robber caught red-handed.”

“Mind if I take her for a test spin?”

The salesman asked to see a license and Yeats fished for his wallet and produced a beat-up California license with a white bend in the middle that obscured the lower part of his face and the date of birth, a mar that always made identification checkers squint. The salesman turned to retrieve the keys from the office and after no more than a minute returned with the keys and a dealer plate with magnets that he affixed to the trunk in exchange for Yeats’ license. The engine roared to life with a low diesel rumble followed by a plume of black diesel particulate. The Volvo chugged out of the parking lot for a short lap around the airport terminal. Yeats false swerved and jammed on the breaks suddenly, let both off the hands at 30 mph to check the alignment. Satisfied, he returned to the lot and the salesman was waiting for Yeats in the parking lot. Yeats asked if he took Visa. The salesman said that he did as long as it cleared authorization, and took the card from Yeats through the open window and turned for the sales office.

“Oh, and 345,647 miles,” Yeats whistled over the top of his bottom lip, “$500 is the most I can pay for that kind of life.”

The salesman said he’d go in and see about it all. Yeats waited in the still running vehicle as Beck played on the radio and Yeats repeated the refrain, “Hell Yeah” and tapped the steering wheel like a bongo drum. The salesman returned with a receipt and Yeats signed and sped off leaving the salesman in a cloud of black diesel exhaust.

He drove straight to the airport terminal taxi line-up and put the Volvo right into the line of duty, not realizing umpteen things needed doing before he could qualify as a legitimate and legal taxi. Cabbies of all kinds waited inside and outside of their taxis – most were new to the country and as always, this was one of the few jobs available. Sikhs in brightly colored refined looking turbans that contrasted paradoxically with workaday clothes; Africans with well manicured afros, wearing close fitting trousers and bright thin cotton shirts with a breast pocket and undershirts, recalling an earlier American era of style. If they worked hard the hope was their children would have better in this land of opportunity. Along with these, there was another kind of cabbie, a domestic breed. These cabbies were normally found wearing unbuttoned flannels, old t-shirts and looked as if they could do with a haircut and a shave. They sit parked at the wheel and read copies of famous but uncommonly read titles such as Ulysses, Gulag Archipelago, A History of English-Speaking Peoples, Paradise Lost, and newer titles of the Infinite Jest or 2666 ilk. Thick tomes are the common denominator for the nicotine stained fingers of these idle cabbies known as ‘The Readers’, mostly college graduate Caucasian drivers of middle-age who do not ply the taxi trade of necessity but of choice, opting out of the dominant social system that requires a structured life and obeisance to people and institutions that these ‘Readers’ would rather have little to do with. There they sit day after day upon beaded seat covers reading and waiting for the next fare.

Small groups of cabbies played cards on the curbside while others leaned against the hoods and side-fenders discussing matters that pressed. Yeats waited in his newly appointed cab and observed a maintenance worker spray-painting lines on the ground in fluorescent green demarcating buried electrical lines. He got out of the Volvo and jogged over.

“Hey, brother, you mind if I borrow your spray can?” Yeats said.

“Say what?” The man looked at him with a confused look. Yeats repeated himself. The maintenance worker looked at the can, looked at his work and handed the can over, simultaneously pulling a pack of cigarettes from his coveralls. Yeats jogged back to the Volvo shaking the spray can as he went and sprayed without pause for precision on each side and the trunk Green Cab. The maintenance worker wandered over to inspect Yeats’ work. “That cab ain’t green.” The maintenance man said.

pages 21-30

Sue Ellen came out the door with provisions for the boys’ trip, setting the wicker basket on the wood plank porch and folded her arms and waited for her goodbye. Mick and Yeats finished packing gear into the small back end of the Bronco and exchanged hugs and words of love and hefted tand climbed into the rig. Floyd leaned on the door with both elbows and gave a few parting words of advice before patting the side as if sending a horse to pasture and the Bronco departed down the lane, between the vines, throwing dust into the air. Floyd and Sue Ellen watched until they were out of view and only when the dust had mostly settled did they turn for the house and routines they knew well.

………………………..

It was late afternoon when downtown Salt Lake became visible in the distance nestled against the Wasatch Range. The Temple steeples of the LDS Church loomed above the city claimed by Brigham Young in 1849, declaring that this desert plot, situated between a dead sea and a mountain range, was the place. The pioneers laid the city out in a grid of square blocks, numbered and named according to their proximity to Temple Square. The golden angel Moroni perched atop the highest spire, peered down upon this city of religious refugees as if in protection. “This is the place,” Yeats said, as the Bronco exited I-15 onto the downtown exit ramp. Mick picked his way through relatively light traffic past Temple Square in a northeast direction towards the University that sat in look out position over the city as if in physical mimic of the role of the professor – reminders and prognosticators of things to come. The Bronco pulled into a space across the street from a row of businesses that included the coffee house Glasnost West, a left of center joint situated across the street from campus, established in the 1980s Yeats guessed. They ordered coffees and considered their options.

“Ya know, these damn college kids.” Mick surveyed the room with disfavor. “So lulled into image, fashion, music, food, - desperate junkies. They study for what? To work at a bank? That doesn’t sound like the message of a $65 concert. And the Profs, they could be as pro-commie as you like, till it comes to their own personal comfort and convenience, their own paycheck and tenure. Then they’re as right wing as Dick Cheney. Not many willing to walk with Gandhi further than to paste up a poster. It’s the human condition. We have bucket loads of good intentions without the spine or gumption to back it up.”

“A few have.” Yeats said. MLK, Martin Niemoller, Siddartha, Emerson perhaps might make the list, and all the others that are the lights flickering in the darkness.”

“Any women make your righteous list there? Probably more women have that self-sacrificial conviction – it’s what being a good mother is all about.” Mick said.

“Yeah, womb love.” Yeats said. “Since when did you get philosophical? You pop off a couple shots overseas and think you see everything clear as Slim Pickens. You’re probably overcoming the effects of the tight pants they made you wear. It’s not as easy as dropping a few bombs and firing M-50s at the natives Reagan style to win the war against anything, much less global terrorism. Mission accomplished.” Yeats stood from his chair, dropped his hands to his side limply, pushing his chest out and drawled his best George W. Bush.

“Shit.” Mick said with a laugh.

“Like Kesey used to say, affecting change happens at a local level – by everyday people. If everyday people give up hope, give up their ideals, then.” Yeats looked for his next thought.

A bearded man with thick hairy arms, gold-rimmed spectacles and a worn green t-shirt, looked over from the neighboring table. He had an amused look on his face and put his book down to survey just what he had on his hands. “Ken-pour-me-some-kool-aid Kesey, huh? What do you know about that old rogue? He was quite an experimentalist and possessed more charisma than Kennedy and Clinton combined, and a hell of a wrestler to boot, but when it comes to socio-political commentary, how about Sam Huntington, Brezinski, or Putnam? What they conceded from not getting high as merry pranksters, they made up for with years of sober academic work. In the bibliography of either you?”

Mick and Yeats stared blankly, not sure what to make of this guy. He continued,

“How about we skip the international global concern. We’re so very good at constructing grandiose solutions to the world’s problems. Criticizing those responsible, yet so miserable at identifying our own culpability. At one moment we all but castrate the Israeli’s for their treatment of the Palestinians, or vice-versa, depending on your righteousness,” the bearded man laughed, “the next moment we treat the person right in front of us with the same existentialist disdain we just got through criticizing. Talk about arm chairing. Where’s your war?” The bearded man asked straight-faced, looking at both Mick and Yeats. Miles Davis’ Apollo at the Ritz played loudly in the café.

“The usual. Fighting the powers of corruption and injustice, and in his case,” Yeats gestured to Mick, “priority number one is winning back the beautiful woman. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed to poach a lecture - see if there is anything interesting being said at the U.” Yeats said.

“I’ll be here.” Mick said.

“Maybe we can pick this up some other time?” Yeats said to the bearded man.

“Sure, I’m around.” The man said, and went back to his reading.

Yeats exited the coffeehouse with care for the incoming co-eds who looked ready to pose for catalogue fashion copy. He crossed the street onto the campus property that had a surprising array of ivy-strewn buildings for the mountain climate. Few students traipsed about but Yeats eyed a young woman coming his way on the single-track diagonal dirt path. He stopped her for directions and asked for the nearest interesting lecture. She said that she didn’t know any interesting lectures but pointed to the Humanities building with the Corinthian columns and broad sweeping granite stairs, observing that lecture or not it the building was worth investigating. Yeats agreed and entering the building found several other students heading for the same arched, cathedral style doorway that led into a large auditorium. He found a seat and chatted with the student to his right plying him with questions about who stood out as the best thinker and speaker on campus. “If you’re looking for a righteous lecture you’ve gotta’ hear this guy Horowitz. He’s brilliant. Wrote some famous books, gives phenomenal lectures, political science mostly, but they seem more like general knowledge: history, literature, religion, law all intertwined. He’s on sabbatical this semester but I hear he’s giving a public lecture this next Sunday night.”

Yeats departed early from that night’s lecture on the failures of the U.N. and why it must be reconstituted in the new era. He rejoined Mick at the coffeehouse. Mick was ready to go and knew where they were going. They headed north and east in the direction of the Olson farm beyond the city limits of Salt Lake. The land was increasingly swallowed by rambling neighborhoods that climbed up hillsides and north towards Ogden. Developments titled with the names of now extinct farms and threatened wildlife habitat, Elk Run, Elk Hill, Saltonstall Farm, Ute Passage Estates, and Open Meadows. The Elk were squeezed ever more each day as traditional migratory routes and grazing lands were paved over, the Saltonstall Farm was defunct as there were very few open meadows that remained in view. At this rate the brothers reckoned the only thing left of the elk, farming and meadows would be a commemorative subdivision named in their memory. Yeats suggested a more honest name such as The Elk Memorial Subdivision, The Previous Site of Saltonstall Farm, Ute’s Relocated, Open Meadows No More. “You ever imagine what this once looked like? Before all of this.” Mick gestured out the open window. In his mind he imagined Ute Indians riding painted ponies up into the hills. He imagined what they must have felt like when they saw the first signs of permanent white settlement, farmhouses, barns, windmills, corrals, silos, and crops, and eventually trains and then tractors, and much later, long after the demise, cars. Mick looked at lonesome dirt roads that snaked back through the trees up into the ridgeline that begged to be followed. Birds swooped and chirped. The wind rustled softly through the corn rows. Farmhands worked at stacking hay with pitchforks. Laundry was hung out to dry on a line. Dogs raced through the fields. A solitary man walked down a road and was greeted by a pick-up with an arm hanging out the window, stopping to share the day’s news before carrying on.

“What do you see Yeats?” Mick asked.

“I see grainy, black and white photographs laid over all this.” He waved his hand out the window as if shooing a fly.

“What?” Mick said.

“Yeah, pictures dating to the 50’s and 60’s wall-papered all over this reality. Little boys unwrapping toys under the Christmas tree - play horses and cows, model train sets. Kids playing in the sandbox with toy earth-moving equipment – toy bulldozers, cranes, Tonka-trucks, and backhoes. You know, what else are they going to do with their lives?”.

Both looked out the window at the passing landscape in real time. An earth-mover patrolled predator like over a freshly scraped hill, in the act of clearing open ground for home sites. The highway was torn up all around making way for new medians and turn lanes for future strip malls and franchise restaurants. On down a ways, Mick pulled off the highway into a field next to a row of bulldozers and earth-movers, laying in wait to grade the next field.

“Fuck it. Let’s assassinate this row of 'dozers.” Mick said.

“A little monkey-wrench operation?” Yeats said, energized.

The brothers hopped from the cab. Mick pulled a Leatherman from his belt and ordered Yeats to find a set of pliers behind the seat of the Bronco and to then climb up in the cab of each machine and find the hood release, and pull each one. Mick was back on the battle field. Yeats did as he was ordered and climbed up into the hulking machines and pulled the hood release. Within a few moments Mick lay siege to the wires within.

“See if you can’t find a socket wrench that fits the oil pan for these fuckers, and drain ‘em.” Mick said.

After completing the job they jumped back into the Bronco and drove past the now incapacitated machines, looking bright and shiny, just as they had before the sabotage. After a short way on the highway, they turned off onto a country road and no more than a mile down this gravel road, pulled into the Olson drive, scattering chickens as a dog came barking, as if this was the biggest news of the day. A wind-mill slowly turned chopping the sunset rays into pieces. Abigail Olson came out onto the porch wiping her hands across the apron front, as if interrupted from a canning job or dinner preparation. Mick and Yeats got out of the vehicle and Abigail hollered a warm hello to them.

“Mick, What a surprise! We were so thrilled to hear you were coming for a visit.”

“Hi Mrs. O.” Mick said.

“Come here, let me get a look at you. What’s it been? Four, five years? My lands.” Abigail said, and held Mick at arms length for inspection. Letting him loose she turned to Yeats.

“And you must be Yeats. I’ve heard a lot about you from Dani.”

“Pleased to meet you Mrs. Olson. I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

“Please, call me Abbey.” Abigail said, and repeated Yeats’ name aloud to herself. “That’s an unusual name.” She commented.

“My folks named me after the poet, as in: An aged man is but a paltry thing, tattered coat upon a stick …” He recited a verse and in mid-sentence was interrupted by Hirem Olson who broke through the door reciting where Yeats had left of: “Unless soul clap its hand and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.” He looked at Yeats with a satisfied smirk as if to say: You best get up early in the morning to out-rank me young upstart. And then he said: “Got something against the aged and decrepit? You best watch your tongue son – all we got around here anymore is tattered coats. Idn’t that right Ab?”

In saying so Hirem gave Abigail a playful rear-end slap-pat.

“Hirem, say hello to Mick and his younger brother, Yeats.” Abigail said. She balanced her willful husband by bringing steady respectability to the Olson family through appropriate impeccability.

“Well of course it’s Yeats!” Hirem cried, driving right back to the poem where he left off: “Nor is there singing school but studying, Monuments.” Before he could finish Abigail cut him off. “Hi! The boy’s name is Yeats, say hello.” Hirem seemingly ignored the instructions, only to discover Mick.

“Well there he is. How’re you boy? It’s been a good while since we’ve seen you. What brings you down to us? Dani’s all but married off.”

Hirem sensed a look from Abigail.

“Well, Ab, I’m just telling Mick here how it is. No use keeping things a secret.”

Abigail invited the two to come in off the porch. The house was modest, well ordered, and clean. Old books lined the walls. There was a portrait of a long-bearded man prominently displayed and Yeats surveyed the wall before pulling a book from the shelf for inspection. With the book in hand he read the brass plaque attached to the portrait of the bearded man, saying the name under his breath, “Morton Saltonstall.”

Hirem was sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room under a reading lamp with a book open in his lap, observing Yeats inspect the room.

“Son, that likeness dates to the 1880’s. Ol’ grandpa Mort, maternal side. Interesting story Mort. A Boston Brahmin, liked to listen to Emerson and joined a Transcendental group that was buying a farm in Harvard to live the utopian life. He didn’t stay long, a falling out of sorts. Ended up in general disrepute, and, long story short, wound up making acquaintance with Joseph Smith while visiting Western New York. In time, Mort, especially educated in those circles, became Smith’s closest consultant and confidante. Came out with the first wave of settlers. Three wives. Always a conservative Mort.” Hirem said, stating the opposite character of Mort. “I come from the middle wife – the favorite wife too, it comes down. Elizabeth. Liza they called her. Middle is the way.” Hirem gestured with his hand turned on end, pushing it ahead like a fish wriggling upstream. Abigail broke the family history lesson by giving a call for dinner. The four gathered around the table and Hirem gave one of his typical brief, if surprisingly sincere prayers, “Sustainer, Nurturer, Nomenclator, we give thanks for all these provisions before us, the two wandering friends that made it to our table, and the lives and hands that provided food for this table. In thanks.” As the last word was off Hirem’s tongue Abigail gave the dinner directions. “Now, Mick, Yeats, please don’t be shy. Eat all you want, there is more where this came from. And I want you to know, you feel free to stay here with us as long as you need to. Our home is open to you.”

“Thanks Mrs. O.” Mick said.

The tablemates ate and talked with ease, discussing the pertinent and impertinent alike. Any table where Hirem Olson sat was never a quiet one. Any table where Yeats sat was not a quiet one either, and if Mick found his stride, which was known to happen on occasion, it would be a difficult table to get a word-in edge wise. Abigail, though not a wall flower, said very little. After a time she began clearing off the table and brought a round of coffee to the three who were content to whittle away at issues yet unresolved and stories untold. After some time Abigail decided it was time for bed and excused herself with some final directions. “Mick, I’ll put you in Dani’s room, if you don’t mind, and Yeats, you can stay in the guest cottage.”

“You know how to use an outhouse son? Two-holer deluxe. Don’t try usin’ both holes at once. You’re a poet, you’ll find your way around all right. How ‘bout a smoke? Join me on the porch?” Hirem said, his words came in rapid fire.

“Sure Hi, I’ll join you.” Yeats said.

The two stood on the front porch and Hirem pulled out a metal cigarette box from his breast pocket and selected out two hand-rolled cigarettes. The evening was tranquil, interrupted only by the chirp of crickets, perhaps telling another encrypted verse from the universal epic poem that went on night after night without end. With one match Hirem lit the cigarette that hung from Yeats’ mouth followed by his own. The smoke had the sweet scent that Hirem referred to as sweet-tea, good for his glaucoma.

“So, uh, you lived out here a long time?” Yeats said, blowing his cloud into the breeze.

“All my life, except that is, when I was back east at school. Family passed this property down over four generations. Homesteaded well over a hundred years ago, original settlers to this valley. Family had a good bit of property. Though, most of it has been sold off by now and the family has moved on. To Salt Lake, then Nevada, mostly California and some beyond. Scattered to the wind.” Hirem said, followed by a muted whistle in imitation of the wind.

“Mick said you run a hardware store.”

“Yeah, it’s been a good thing for many years, but looks as if we’re going to close the doors. New Kinder-Mart coming to town, and I expect we just won’t compete. I can’t hardly blame the customers. The prices are unbeatably low at Kinder-Mart, and with big families and all it’s a hard thing to refuse. Besides, I’m old enough to retire and the girls don’t want to take over for their old man. Hell, Dani’s smart enough to join the ranks of the Kinder clan. What do you say we inspect your barracks?”

The two walked across the yard to a small cottage. Hi opened the door and lit a kerosene lamp. “There’s your bed. Extra quilts if you need them. Washbasin and wood-stove. I like to keep it rustic. More reliability and romance that way. Hit the rack or come on back to the house, up to you, but I’m beating the sandman to bed. Roosters will be crowing before sun up.” The two finished their cigarettes, said adieu and parted for bed.

The next morning, a Sunday, Hirem, Mick and Yeats sat at the table waiting for breakfast by talking and drinking coffee. Mick forecast the day for the Olsons, relaying that he and Yeats were going to town that afternoon. “You’ll have the morning free for me to introduce you over at the meeting-house.” Hirem said, with a smirk.

“Yeats is going to a lecture at the University and I thought I’d go out and say hello to Dani. Before that, we’ll probably just hang around the house. No offense Hi, but I don’t go for organized religion and public prayers.” Hirem knew as much, and if it weren’t for his friends, he wouldn’t have much use for Church either.

“Going out to see Dani huh? Abb, is Dani home tonight?” Hirem hollered to Abbey in the other room. She hollered back.

“I don’t know Hi. I know she and Chad are going to some kind of Ward function this afternoon. I think Chad leaves on business this evening. She should be home working in the garden, if I know Dani.”

“Mick, I can’t say I’m against a little honest competition for Dani. I’m still not sure about this Chad.”

Abigail chided Hirem for his frankness from the other room. Hirem gestured at Mick and yelled back to Abbey, “Well, I can’t say I’m certain about this one either.”

Later in the afternoon, after several hours of general reading, including from the stacks of yellow National Geographic magazines that lined the wall from 1933 onward, Mick and Yeats headed for Salt Lake. Mick dropped Yeats at the U to attend the Horowitz lecture. Inside the lecture hall the crowd noisily waited. The MC had came to the microphone and began talking over the assembled audience, lauding the credentials of the great Professor Jerry Horowitz. “A man featured on the cover of TIME magazine titled, “Far Out and Still Here!” with academic exploits too numerous to list. Recent nominee for a Pulitzer with his newly released book Still Widely Wandering. Not only an academic and consummate scholar, but also a gifted artist, a respected activist and organizer, and the regional pinochle champion and Wasatch County Fair blue-ribbon winner for exotic gourds ten years running.” There was applauding and stamping of feet, as if a great band were being exhorted for an encore performance. The MC went on, “Horowitz is an experimental and prolific shrimp farmer in the waters of the Great Salt Lake, where it is said living things cannot survive, an achievement that Professor Horowitz is rumored to be most proud of. People of the Land, I present to you Dr. Jerry Horowitz!” As with all Horowitz lectures, a musical score preceded Horowitz’s entrance.

The house lights dropped and the crisp, rasping strings of a fiddler filled the darkness. A spotlight shot onto the stage and emerging from the shadows the fiddler pulled the melancholic notes of Stille Nacht with his bow, the song that had been played Christmas morning 1914, by a lone and nameless fiddler on the trench strewn Western Front of World War I. As the fiddler played with bent elbow and dropped head swaying with the feelings of the notes, Horowitz appeared from the shadows, smoking a pipe and standing with one hand on the lectern, eyes closed as if soaking in the fiddler’s sweet- sorrow tune. The piece finished in dramatic fashion and Horowitz gathered himself behind the lectern, checked his notes, scanned the crowd, rechecked his notes, cleared his throat and began the lecture without so much as a glance at the notes on the lectern. Horowitz wore a dark shade herring-bone tweed jacket with a navy blue v-neck sweater underneath, drab olive cargo pants and red suede trainers.

“The birthday of a Middle-Eastern peasant. Summoned by the music of the lone soldier-fiddler, the soldiers from both sides crawled from their holes at the sound and made momentary peace on the frozen mud of Flanders under the star-filled sky. Music, the language and balm of the soul. If everything we have is what we can see and make sense of then we are truly lost in the cosmos. Thinking must be in cooperation, mutually informed by the heart and with the emotions. The Enlightenment made the emotions unfashionable. This is why music is always a prologue to my lectures. Music – a beautiful protest through sensuality, the light in the darkness when the rational has lost its way. Music – the language of the soul. For most if not all of these soldiers this musical Christmas cease-fire was the only redemptive act in the apocalypse of the Great War. It subverted the bellicose slogans and suggested that the men fighting and dying were more than proxies for governments, more than expendable pawns in the futile war of European nobility. The Christmas truce was a candle lit in the darkness of Flanders that flickered briefly, surviving only in memoirs, letters, song, drama, story, and hearts. Cigarettes were offered as make-shift peace offerings between the opposing trenches as each side tentatively crawled from their respective protected position, near frozen by the Continental winter. Humanity was laid bare with a momentary subversion of the power-intoxicated politicos and deranged imperial dictators that still roamed Europe. The opposing sides exchanged and venerated one another as mere fellow human beings. Beings. The proletariat, the people, are united, whether they know so or not, made subservient through nationalism, ignorance, fear and impoverishment. The nobility of largesse united too in the commodity of men for wealth.

The subject for this evening’s comments, if you are the titling kind, is what the dehumanizing effects of mega-corporations are and how the impact of global trade will cripple our humanity. To anchor my comments in reality, I will be using the locally venerated Kinder-Mart as a case study, our backyard villain and alpha-dog of discount stores and the alpha-dog of the tax-credit dog bowl too. The phenomenal growth of this particular corporation has been supported by taxpayers in many states through economic subsidies, all the while oppressing the family-run businesses that were once the backbone of American commerce.”

Horowitz grew increasingly animated and used his hands for emphasis, moving them as if he were a conductor of a large symphony, his voice rising and falling with the actions of his hands. “Sweetheart deals given to Kinder-Mart and similar corporations – abound. Family owned grocer Red McCleod saw the sales of his store in Hamilton, Idaho plunge as soon as the Kinder-Mart super-center opened on the edge of town. McCleod’s family had operated in Hamilton for seventy-five years, weathering every economic downturn, including the Great Depression. But Red couldn’t compete with Kinder’s prices and lost half his business overnight. Red boarded the windows of his store in a matter of months. Red’s story is being played out in thousands of communities across America today. Some say Red and others like him simply are not to fit to compete in the new global era of business. Others say that this new era of business has forgotten the same lesson humanity has forgotten many times before. Human-beings are not a commodity to work as slave labor under fluorescent lights of retail hell or the cloudless sky of hell building pyramids. When will we have compassion and a notion of proportion?”

Mick drove southwest from Salt Lake across the Jordan River into the setting sun towards the village of West Jordan. It was late in the afternoon and bugs squashing on the windshield made it difficult to see. The shadows shone long and slanty from the desert landscape vivid in the dust-filtered light. Mick pulled up to a hunkered and rounded adobe house with deep windows that looked like sunken eyes. The shoulder-high adobe wall circled the yard and was decorated with bright tile mosaics that sparkled in the late sun that hovered a finger above the jagged-blue horizon line. Dani crouched near the wall in the back of the garden, her arms and legs bared in cut-off jeans and white tank-top. She was every bit the ravishing woman that Mick knew from years before.

The bumper of Dani’s pickup was tagged with an array of stickers: Be the Change You Wish to see in the World and CASH on the bumper. Affixed to the rear window was the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, HOWL if you love City Lights Bookstore, NOLS, National Public Radio, the likeness of Jerry Garcia in bright palette, and Practice Humility. Mick came to the gate and looked over. Amherst had an effect on her.

“Know where I can find a good mechanic around here? She seems to be running a little rough.” Mick slapped the hood of his truck to indicate the problem vehicle.

“Mick?” Dani said, wiping loose strands of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. Her mother had called to say Mick was in town and coming out, but she didn’t know just when, and regardless, his voice was a surprise after all of these years. She stood up out of her squat to welcome the long-lost visitor stepping toward the gate with a strange unsteadiness to her legs. She was at once excited yet tentative. There was history here and the tension was palpable. Sheboygan barked on the porch of the house and came running down to the gate. Mick opened the gate and stooped to greet the dog he knew as a pup and was licked rapturously as if it had been only days since the two had seen one another.

“I was over at your folks’ place. Hi and Abbey mentioned you were living out here. I thought I’d come out and see how you were getting along.” Mick said.

“How long have you been back?”

Dani was a bit taken aback and stumbling for words, yet somehow graceful in the awkwardness, a quality of graceful manner inherited from her mother. Before Mick managed to answer, Dani fired the next question:

“And you’re living where?”

She was confused, concerned and unsure about anything regarding Mick. Where he lived, where he’d been, where he was going and why he was here in her front yard after so many years. Mick fidgeted and fumbled for words. “I returned from overseas a month or so ago and Yeats and I, we left California a few days back to visit Mom and Pop Fitz for a few days, and just sort of kept going. Found ourselves in Salt Lake.”

Mick was not one to be discombobulated, but he had become so with Dani.

………….

Bespectacled Horowitz wrapped up his lecture by saying, “The modern consciousness is dependant in great part on the thought of Friedrich Hegel, who in the early nineteenth century taught that the history of humanity is a history of inexorable progression from smaller to larger forms, from simple to complex organisms, irrationality to rationality. Every realm of thought, from theology to economics, from physics to politics has been influenced by Hegel’s notions of progress. Marxism, for example, with its theory of economic progress from feudalism to bourgeois to communism, is Hegelian in origin. Many still cling to the Hegelian belief that newer, bigger and more complex is better. Hegelianism is a hard habit to break. It may be the particular gift of this young century to see the betrayal in the Hegelian idea of human progress, by way of experiencing the downsides of complex bureaucratic institutions that turn like rusty gears. I predict it shall be the task of this century to dismantle and dissolve many of the institutions which have dominated us in the previous enlightenment-driven centuries. The wisdom that we must seek lies in the power of this short, prophetic phrase, by E.F. Schumacher: ‘Small is beautiful.’ I’ll leave off with those words, naturally I assume there are some questions – and I’m happy to give a stab at them, and know this, as a favored friend of mine was fond of saying, ‘Anyone who takes this lecture seriously will be shot, and anyone who does not take it seriously will be buried alive by a Mitsubishi bulldozer!’”

Horowitz stood patiently at the podium, waiting for the first question from the audience. As usual there was a brief lag before the first questioner roused the fortitude to approach the microphone, and as usual, after the first question broke the ice, dozens came pouring down in a deluge of wonderings and calls for specifics. After fielding several comments that began to sound more and more alike, Horowitz allowed for one last true question before calling it quits, pointing with a smile to a familiar looking face in the front row.

“Yeah, Professor, I’m on board with what’re saying, you know this train of resistance bound for glory, but how do we get out of the last station? I mean, does the movement work itself out, work itself in – practically? How do the ideas get out of this room and into my life, our lives – into our world?” Yeats stayed standing after his question and waited for the answer from the Professor. This was the guy he had met at the coffee house the first day to Salt Lake.

“The movement, the confession, the conviction of purpose, continues.” Jerry said, and gestured like an Indian sage in sign language, palm down, arm thrusting slowly forward, eyes following the extended arm into the crowd. Horowitz was momentarily entranced.

“Through every person, at a local level, wherever that is, whether a garbage truck driver, a department store sales clerk, a lawyer, or an age-group track coach, the movement continues, incrementally, steadily, one choice, one human at a time. Stalwart growth from the grassroots on up. Moment by moment, bit by bit. And it will take a lot longer than you wish, gravely long, generations even. We’ve got to endure, embracing the adversity and diversity that is sure to come.”

…………

Mick and Dani were sitting silently on the front porch. A palpable awkwardness hung in the air, the sky lit yellow by curling clouds fringed in pink against the darkening band that was the Eastern horizon that uncovered the nights avant-garde of flickering white stars. It was summertime in the desert and the crickets had their chirp.

“Would you care for something to drink? But gosh, I don’t know if I have anything to offer. Maybe a glass of water or herbal tea?” Dani said.

“Beer?” Mick said.

“I could probably find a forgotten one in the back of the fridge.”

“A little lax in your observances are you Dan? You want to take Sheboygan and drive out to Antelope Island?”

Dani grew uncomfortable with the question.

“I don’t know Mick. I’m ... It’s just that - it’s.”

“Come on. We’ll figure it out, it’s easier to do when you’re moving.”

Mick grabbed Dani by the hand.

………………

The auditorium exits spilled with an enthusiastic crowd full of energetic conversation imparted by the Horowitz lecture. Yeats overhead a couple of activist-intellectuals discuss what they called an after lecture party. Yeats, pinned in next to them amidst the pressing bodies of people bottle-necked at the exit door made out that the party would be at the Keating mansion and that Horowitz would be there. He knew he had to find a way to be there too.

A couple of hours later Yeats approached the front door of a very large white-with-pillars house on a winding road just up the hill from the University that overlooked the city lights that glowed yellow-orange in the steep distance below. A doorman in casual dress greeted Yeats in front of the four-paneled front door festooned with a carved chain of foliage and brass boar-head knocker. Yeats wrongly assumed he could fast-talk his way in as he had so many times before on similar occasions and was surprised to see the doorman holding a clip-board with the names approved for the gathering. He could see checks in red ink next to some of the names, presumably those who had arrived. Yeats craned to look at the sheet and the doorman pulled the clip-board to his chest and informed Yeats that it was an invite only affair hosted by what he referred to as ‘The Foundation,’ and that it was without question, time for him to leave. His parting line was a bit amateurish and self-important Yeats thought. “How do we know who you are? You could be a spy from the Feds or the LDS Gestapo.”

Yeats conceded easily not wanting to make an impression so he could get a second shot at the party, and so left without another word. His second plan was already formulating in his mind. He jogged down the hill to the liquor store he had seen on the way up, advertised in reddish-pink neon letters. The letters in Liquor flickered in a uneven pattern. The store windows were black, the door was locked, and a sign in front indicated that the store was closed on Sundays. Yeats silently calculated to himself. Bars were open Sundays weren’t they? He ran a block further down the street to the only establishment in sight, The University Hill Pronghorn Drinking Establishment, it advertised itself as a private club, accompanied by an official looking state certificate in the window. Yeats didn’t know what this meant and entered the dimly lit bar. Pool was played towards the back and a football game glowed on the TV above the bar. Yeats approached the bar and waited. Eventually a man with a towel over his left shoulder appeared and without enthusiasm looked Yeats’ way.

“I’d, uh, I’d like twelve bottles of beer – to go.” Yeats said, pointing to the door.

The bartend had his back turned and didn’t seem to hear what Yeats said. When he did turn around he showed a put-out expression as if you’d just told him to take out the trash.

“Got yer credentials?” The bartend said.

Yeats grabbed for his wallet and produced a California license.

“Drinking credentials. Pronghorn membership.” The bartend said, pushing back the license.