Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

  But she stops abruptly, her mouth just clamps shut. And Jillian, who has been trying not to roll her eyes, sees a sudden look of terror flash across Sunshine’s face. It’s so intense that Jillian actually reaches out and touches Sunshine’s arm, and she’s about to ask Sunshine if she’s okay when Leida throws in the towel.

  “Oh, shit,” Leida says, exasperated, “Get me the hell out of here. That’s all I need right now is to stand here and listen to some religious mumbo-jumbo from some washed-out flower child. Let’s go see G.W. almighty Kendal and get this over with.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Tallent says, amiably. “I appreciate your cooperation. If you’ll follow me please?”

  ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

  As he walks off with Leida, it occurs to Darvell Tallent that he doesn’t really have any idea how he’s going to find G.W., who could be anywhere on the grounds, or even in the house, which is off-limits to security personnel except in an emergency, which this definitely is not.

  I don’t want to have to keep on eye on this lady while I wander around looking for G.W., Tallent muses, so I’ll just take her over to the command post and leave her there while I try to track him down.

  She’ll freak when she realizes that I’m going to leave her stewing in her own juices for a while. We just might have to hog-tie her to get her to stay put.

  He smiles.

  2.5.6: Dallas

  “Why do you place so much importance on winning? I don’t understand. Perhaps you can explain it to me.”

  “I don’t know if you’re putting me on, or what.” Scott Marcus squints as he tries to focus more clearly on Nathan’s face. They sit on the lawn, the athlete and the guru, facing each other. Nathan is uphill from Scott, his back to the setting sun – which is, by now, little more than a red glow on the horizon. From Scott’s perspective, there’s still enough of a glare in the western sky to surround Nathan with a surreal, shimmering halo.

  “Not at all.” Nathan waves his hand, dismissing the thought. “Perhaps I don’t approach the question quite as earnestly as you do, but I’m not putting you on, Scott. Tell me: Why isn’t it enough simply to do your best? Why do you have to do better than everyone else?”

  “How else am I going to measure myself?” Scott is genuinely puzzled. “The guys I’m competing against are, like, my yardstick, you know? The only real way I have of figuring out how good I am is to compare my performance to theirs.”

  “And also, you do more good. More better?” Kristin Kiergaard laughs as she steps up behind Scott, resting her hands on his shoulders. “My English not so good, sorry. Scott, you help me?”

  “What Kristin’s trying to say, I think, is that you perform a whole lot better when somebody’s pushing you.” Scott glances up at Kristin for confirmation, and she nods. “And that’s God’s honest truth, my man. You don’t know what it’s like to do your best until you’re a hundred yards from the finish line, and both your knees feel like they’re shot to hell, and you’ve got this pain in your side, and you can’t even feel your feet, man, it’s like they’re not even there. You can see them but you can’t even feel the suckers hitting the ground. And all you want to do is just get it over with. And then you hear somebody coming up behind you. Am I right?”

  A small crowd has started to gather; Scott looks around for confirmation. “I hear that!” someone hoots; “Yeah, I been there,” another voice chimes in.

  “And that’s when you find out how good you really are.” Scott presses his point. “That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s what separates the men from the boys.”

  “So, what you are telling me is that you require someone else to pump your adrenalin for you?” Nathan asks. “You are not able to control the functions of your own body without the assistance of another person?”

  “That’s just the way it works,” says an earnest young woman, perhaps in her late teens. She sits on the grass with her apparently identical twin, both of them in ponytails and braces. “It’s just a matter of physiology, isn’t it? I mean, it’s sort of like the fight-or-flight reflex, it’s not something that you can control. Sort of like your heartbeat.”

  “And why is it,” Nathan counters, “that you cannot control your heartbeat?”

  “Oh, I get it.” Michelle Stackhouse joins the group, placing her hands briefly on Scott Marcus’ shoulders, just as Kristin Kiergaard had done a few moments ago. “You must be one of them swami dudes. You can control your heartbeat and all that good stuff, right?”

  “What a crock,” Scott says, disparagingly. “Nobody can do that. You’ve been living in California too long if you believe that bullshit, Michelle.”

  She slaps him playfully on the head. “It’s not a crock, Marcus, you asshole. You don’t know everything. I’ve read about guys who can do that.” She looks at Nathan. The sun has slipped below the horizon; the halo effect has vanished in the dusk. “Is it true? Can you control your heartbeat?”

  “Can you control your breathing?” Nathan parries.

  “Sure, but that’s different,” Michelle points out. “Breathing is both a voluntary and an involuntary mechanism. But your heartbeat is purely involuntary. Just like the release of hormones, like adrenalin. There’s no way that we mere mortals can control it.”

  “Go get him, Michelle,” someone says. The crowd has expanded; perhaps a dozen people stand or sit on the slope. With Nathan’s elevated position up-slope from the assemblage, he looks for all the world like a religious leader delivering a sermon, a master addressing his disciples.

  “But you use methods to control your breathing other than your ‘voluntary mechanisms’ as you call them, don’t you?” Nathan scans the crowd, his eyes making brief and personal contact with each listener. “For example, some of you may use meditative techniques to slow your breathing; that’s not the same as conscious control, is it? It’s kind of a trick, a subterfuge. You embark on one course of action – namely, meditation – to get your body to produce a desired reaction – namely, to slow your breathing.”

  “But that’s not what we’re really talking about, is it?” Scott argues. “I mean, there’s no way you can trick your body into giving you a shot of adrenalin, is there? Hell, if I could do that, I’d never lose.”

  “Oh, great,” someone moans from nearby. “You never lose as it is. Gimme a break.” The crowd laughs.

  “Yeah, that’s just what we need,” someone else jokes. “A supercharged Scott Marcus. Aargh. It’s too horrible to think about.”

  “And I’m not talking about just psyching yourself up or anything like that,” Scott presses the point. “I mean really releasing a measured dose of adrenalin into your bloodstream, on demand. Can you do that?”

  Nathan smiles. “That brings me back to my original question: Why is it so important to win? Why do you have to do better than everybody else just to feel good about yourself?” Nathan’s eyes twinkle as his gaze sweeps the crowd. “Why is it not enough simply to feel that you have done your best? Why does your best have to be better than everybody else’s best?”

  “Oh, come on,” Scott insists. “Answer the question, dude.”

  “Yes. I can.”

  “You can control the release of adrenalin into your bloodstream?” Scott is clearly skeptical.

  “I have complete control over all of the functions of my body.” Nathan waves his hand, dismissing the idea as trivial. “It’s not important. Each of you can do the same. You simply have not learned how. It’s not magical. It’s not mystical. Like so many other things, it is simply a matter of practice.”

  “That girl, Sunshine, the one who was doing so well up in Boston – she’s one of your students, isn’t she?” Carla Kwan settles on the grass next to Scott Marcus. The group has grown to a couple of dozen people, gathered around Nathan in a semi-circle on the sloping lawn. “Can she do that kind of stuff? You know, give herself a shot of adrenalin, control her heartbeat, stuff like that?”

  “Sunshine has not asked to learn t
hese things. She’s content to perform to the best of her natural abilities.”

  “But there’s nothing unnatural about adrenalin,” Carla points out. “I mean, she wears running shoes so she can run faster, doesn’t she? It seems to me that if she’s not taking advantage of every trick you could teach her, she’s not really performing to the best of her abilities.”

  “She wears running shoes to protect her feet. And those ‘tricks,’ as you call them, can be harmful to your body.” Nathan smiles, obviously enjoying the exchange. “Your body knows what’s best for it. When you need some adrenalin, your body releases it; when your circulation needs to be increased, your heart beats faster. As athletes, certainly you are aware of the importance of listening to what your body tells you. Yes, it is possible to override the protective systems built into your body. But it is seldom wise.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute, I can hear it.” Scott Marcus holds up his hands for silence; he seems to be listening to something. “I can hear it.” He looks around excitedly. “It’s my body, it’s trying to tell me something.” He rises slowly to his feet, wearing a dazed expression.

  “Oh, Scott,” Michelle interjects, tiredly. “Give us a break.”

  “No, wait, I hear it, it’s my body, it’s telling me something.” He’s wide-eyed, insistent.

  “Scott …”

  “It says that it wants… what is it? I can’t… Yes! That’s it!” He snaps his fingers and grins wildly. “It’s telling me that it wants another brewski!” And to the cheers of the crowd, he howls and runs off in the direction of the bar.

  ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍

  As if his exit is some kind of signal, most of the crowd stands up and stretches. They start to talk among themselves, and they begin to wander off in small groups.

  Carla Kwan stands slowly, looking quizzically at Nathan, indecision marked on her face. She walks over to him just as he’s getting to his feet.

  “Excuse me,” she says, “can I ask you a quick question?”

  “Of course.”

  Standing, he’s not as tall as she expected him to be. He seems so supremely confident and powerful that she realizes that she was expecting him to be a more physically imposing figure. And although she’s been uncertain about approaching him, afraid that he’d be aloof and mysterious, now that she’s engaged him he appears to be quite warm and friendly.

  “Could you really teach me to do those things you were talking about?” she asks. “I know you said it’s not wise and all that, but I’d do anything to improve my performance.”

  “I could teach you those things,” Nathan says. “But not as quickly as you would like to learn them. I can sense your impatience, and these things are possible only when you have become spiritually aware. So a full answer to your question is: Yes, I can teach you what you want to know, not as isolated techniques, but rather as integral elements of a program of spiritual awakening.” He smiles. “And you are not prepared to undertake such a program at this time.”

  Carla’s mouth drops in surprise. “That’s just what I was about to say.”

  Nathan smiles, bows his head slightly, and turns to walk away. But after he has taken just a few steps, he hesitates and turns back to Carla, as if as an afterthought.

  “But there is a catch, of course,” he says. “You see it, don’t you?”

  What’s he talking about? Carla wonders, confused. What catch?

  But then it comes to her, dimly at first, as if Nathan has planted the seed of a thought in her mind and it’s taking a few moments to germinate.

  “If I want to learn those tricks to improve my performance,” she says slowly, figuring it out as she goes along, “first, I’d have to become spiritually aware. And when that happens…”

  “Go on.”

  It all falls into place. “And once I become spiritually aware, I won’t be concerned with winning anymore, so I won’t want to use some kind of trick to improve my performance. That’s the catch.” She laughs at its pure simplicity. “Once I know how to do it, I won’t want to do it.”

  Nathan walks back the few steps to where Carla stands, pleased with herself for having solved the riddle. He places his right hand on her head, the heel of his palm resting on her forehead, his fingers extending into her hair. His eyes meet hers. She thinks that she feels a tingling from his palm, like a mild electric shock, and she’s not sure, but she may be hearing a low buzzing sound, and her eyes are blurring slightly, slipping just the tiniest bit out of focus…

  And then he removes his hand, turns, and walks away. And in the few seconds that it takes Carla to blink her eyes and clear her head, he’s disappeared, like a phantasm into the dusk.

  2.5.7: Dallas

  “C’mon, through here. It’s a shortcut.” Jillian pushes a few low-hanging branches out of the way and holds them back so they won’t snap in Sunshine’s face.

  Sunshine hesitates. “It’s kinda dark in there, isn’t it? Maybe we should go around.”

  “Sunshine, don’t be such a wimp,” Jillian says, impatiently. “I’ve been cutting through here since I was a kid. I could do it blindfolded. You’re not scared of the dark, are you?”

  Sunshine shakes her head, slowly. But Jillian gets the feeling that her heart’s not in it. Something’s wrong.

  Maybe she is scared of the dark.

  Well, Jillian thinks, as she pushes through the branches, that’s not my problem.

  After a few seconds she locates the path, a narrow earthen track, so indistinct that she’s probably the only one who can actually see it. But it’s not like anyone could get lost in here, she thinks. Even if Sunshine can’t follow me, she could walk five minutes in any direction and literally be out of the woods.

  But just the same, she looks back over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure that Sunshine’s still tagging along behind her.

  But the fourth or maybe the fifth time she looks back, nobody’s there.

  She thinks about forging on without her shadow, but after a few seconds she stops, sighs disgustedly, and turns back to find out what the problem is.

  “Did you hear that?” Sunshine whispers, as Jillian approaches.

  “I didn’t hear anything. You’re…”

  “Shhh! Listen!”

  The woods are deathly still. The only sounds that Jillian hears are from the party, distant conversations drifting through the still night air, an occasional twinkling of laughter.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Jillian says, softly. Why am I whispering? she wonders. “Let’s go.”

  “No. Wait. There it is again.”

  And this time there is something, faint but unmistakable. A soft groan? As if someone is in pain? It sounds like it’s not very far away. Or is it a louder noise coming from a great distance? Hard to tell.

  Puzzled, Jillian heads off into the woods in what she thinks is the direction of the sound.

  “Jill!” Sunshine, standing alone on the trail, sounds frantic. “Jill!” she calls in as loud a whisper as she dares. “Don’t leave me here!”

  “Then come with me,” Jillian commands, and motions with her arm for Sunshine to follow. Without waiting to see what Sunshine will do, she pushes deeper into the woods, moving as silently as she can. After a few seconds, a crashing in the underbrush tells her that Sunshine has decided to follow. “Don’t make so much noise!” she cautions over her shoulder.

  “Sorry.”

  “Come on.”

  And so they creep off into the copse, pausing occasionally to listen. But the woods have fallen silent. Not a sound. But…

  But there it is again. Closer, this time.

  Jillian turns to Sunshine, places a warning finger over her lips, and begins to move as stealthily as she can toward the source of the noise…

  …and there it is again. What can it be?

  They’re almost there. They’ll know soon enough.

  A flash of motion catches Jillian’s eye. She holds up a hand for Sunshine to stop.

 
; “What is it?” Sunshine whispers, anxiously.

  “I’m not sure.”

  They inch forward, one small step at a time, and then – yes, there it is, that movement again, it’s – is that a person? A man? Leaning against a tree? With – with what? With some kind of animal? A large dog sitting at his feet? Leaning up against him?

  Jillian rubs her eyes and squints, trying to give some definition to the murky forms that are now only several yards away.

  And then, in one, sickening instant, the images resolve into all-too-definite forms.

  Now she knows what she’s looking at.

  The form with its back to the tree is Jason Stackhouse. And the form sitting at his feet is not a dog, it’s Kimberly Overdorf. And she’s not actually sitting at his feet, she’s kneeling in front of him. And the movement that attracted Jillian’s attention is Kimberly Overdorf’s head bobbing back and forth in an instantly recognizable motion between Jason Stackhouse’s legs.

  The moans that she’s been hearing are Jason’s.

  And he is not in pain.

  For several seconds, Jillian watches in mute horror, wanting to turn away but transfixed in utter disbelief. Jason’s hands rest lightly on Kimberly’s head as she moves slowly and rhythmically back and forth. She increases her tempo. He moans again.

  Definitely not pain.

  Jillian wrenches herself away and whirls around, nearly crashing into Sunshine, who has been peering over her shoulder. She moves quickly around Sunshine, and strides quietly but resolutely back to the trail, with Sunshine tagging along behind.

  “Jill?” Sunshine says, when they reach the trail. But Jillian shakes her head, she doesn’t want to talk. They march along in silence for a few minutes. Finally, the trail leaves the thicket and opens out into a large expanse of lawn. The house looms off in the distance at the crest of a gentle slope. From down by the lake, the lights and sounds of the party drift up to them.

  “How could she do that to me?” Jillian paces back and forth, furious. “My best friend! I can’t believe it. Nothing but a… a common tramp.” She shakes her head sharply, trying to erase the deeply etched image from her mind. “I can’t believe it.”