Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  Max glanced over at Aidos. From her presence he derived a certain courageous detachment. She happened to be standing next to the mayor, a contrast so profound that Max could hardly hold back his amazement. The mayor—with his frozen grin, slicked-back hair, pinstriped suit, and shiny leather shoes—looked like a mannequin next to the earthy, free-spirited pixie. To Max, Fitch was a statue of contrived self-confidence—lifeless, artificial, and turd-stained, whereas Aidos, with the pine needles dangling from her wild mane, looked void of any pretension; as comfortable with herself as a lone man in the presence of his beloved dog.

  “I feel,” Max answered, a cold gleam in his eye, “…dangerous.”

  The mayor laughed approvingly. “He’s dangerous, all right,” he said to Gary Webber. “This boy has topped Pinecrest’s Most Wanted for as long as I can remember. A prankster for the most part, but that’s why I believe in sports programs. They give boys like Max the positive means they need for channeling their excessive energies. He’s not as wild as he used to be—though I heard about that fight you started during the prom.”

  “Max didn’t start it,” Randy said. “He rescued me!”

  “Yes, I’m sure Max was just being his usual heroic self,” the mayor said skeptically. “No matter. Max can vindicate himself on the playing field—prove himself like a true gladiator.”

  Katie glanced at Max. She felt something threatening in his silence. Steve felt it too.

  “Sports are so dull,” Mrs. Austin said. “Really now, we must be going. Katie, we’ll give you a ride home. I’d like you to help me pick out some clothes to wear, will you?”

  “Sure, Mom. Daddy, will you help me carry some of my packages?” She bent down and began picking up bags and stuffing them into his arms.

  “Good God, girl. What didn’t you buy?”

  “They’re for school,” she explained.

  “Yes, dear,” Mrs. Austin said. “You don’t want your daughter looking like—” She became aware that she was staring right at Aidos. She casually averted her eyes. “It’s part of her graduation present, remember?”

  “Can you give us a lift too, Mr. Austin?” April asked.

  “There’s really not enough room with all these packages,” he said. “Tell you what. Katie, you go with Mr. Webber. Girls, come with us. Katie can show you the way, Gary.”

  Katie turned to Max and shrugged helplessly, then she leaned over on tiptoe and whispered in his ear that she would see him later.

  Soon everybody had left except Max, Steve, and Aidos, who said that she also had to be going, that her father was waiting for her. She asked if Max would give Ms. Winters her regards. She would be seeing her the following night anyway, as Ms. Winters visited every Sunday evening.

  “Aidos,” Max said, “I’m sorry, but I forgot that Katie and I already had plans for tonight.”

  “That’s okay. How about Sunday? You can drive out with Ms. Winters.”

  “That would be great. Thanks.”

  “Okay, tomorrow then.” She turned to Steve. “Steve, would you like to come? I’m sure my father would like to meet you too.”

  Steve was flattered. “I already promised Regina we would go look at the stars out by Brannigan’s Meadow.”

  “What a lovely thing to do,” Aidos said. “Tomorrow is a new moon. The sky will be spectacular and you’ll be able to see Venus and Saturn having tea together.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for them,” he said, knowing well he’d never be able to distinguish them.

  “Well, I had better be going. Goodbye!” She trotted off.

  “What do you think?” Steve said, turning to his friend.

  “About what?”

  “Everything, I guess.”

  “I’m not playing,” Max said.

  “Football?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aw, crap. I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “You knew?”

  “I suspected. Last year at this time football was all you talked about. You were practicing constantly. You haven’t mentioned a word about it.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what to think. A lot of people are counting on you, Max.”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about you, Steve?”

  “Without you we don’t have a chance, you know that.”

  “Mike can throw. He’s pretty good.”

  “Come on, Max. You’re the captain. Everyone looks to you. You make things happen.”

  “No, really, we have a lot of good players. You can still do something.”

  “Forget it, Max. Besides, if you don’t play, I don’t play.”

  “Steve—”

  “I’m serious. You think you’re the only one that has been giving this some thought? I’ve thought about it plenty.”

  “Have you mentioned it to anyone?”

  “Just Regina.”

  “And…?”

  “She hates football. She thinks it’s barbaric.”

  “So she’s behind you?”

  “No. She thinks I should play. She said barbarism was my forte. Have you told anyone?”

  “Just Aidos.”

  “What did she say?

  “She said that if I quit it’s in order to become captain of a much bigger team.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Max shrugged. “I have no idea. She says a lot of weird stuff like that.”

  Steve said, “Did you get what Fitch called us?”

  “Gladiators. You know what a gladiator was, don’t you? A slave who fought for the entertainment of spectators.”

  “That got to me too. You know, you could forget about them and just play for yourself.”

  “Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?”

  Steve nodded. “So, what do we do now?”

  “Just keep doing what we’ve been doing, I guess.”

  “A lot of people are going to ask a lot of questions.”

  “They’ll be pissed all right.”

  “And we just ignore them?”

  “There are all kinds of slavery,” Max said. “If you’re a slave to other people’s opinions you’ll never know a moment’s freedom. Think of it as a test. You want to be a poet? Don’t just look at the stars—a stargazer. The world is full of pretty poetry. Be a star blazer. Unleash that epic soul of yours, and sing out, oh bard of Pinecrest!”

  Steve laughed. “You crack me up, Max.”

  “You think I’m joking?”

  “I know you’re not. That’s what’s so funny. And how about you, oh sage of silliness, what are you going to do?”

  “Me?” Max said, nodding to a couple strolling up the sidewalk towards them. “I’m going to sell some lemonade…”

  Max dashed around the table and planted himself squarely before the couple.

  “Whoa,” he said. “You’re not going to just walk on by without stopping for something to drink, are you?”

  They were a recently engaged couple up from the city for a look at the new art galleries. The man was large with wispy blond hair. His lady was slender, perky, and heavily made up. They eyed Max with a look of inconvenience. Before they had the chance to reply, Max was on top of them.

  “Listen,” he said, “it’s simple. The juice is great and the library needs the money. Surely you’re not in such a hurry that you can’t pause for a few minutes to sit and enjoy our little park. Sip some lemonade. Discuss the meaning of life. It’ll be fun. It’ll be novel. It’ll probably be the highlight of your day.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Steve had poured two glasses and carried them over. He offered them up with a smile. “My friend is right, you know.”

  Astonished by the two young men’s nerve the couple could only blush and giggle.

  Steve said, “What are you waiting for?”

  “Honey?” the man said.

  “But I don’t know the meaning of life.”


  Steve said, “Fair enough. Then talk about how fortunate you are to be with each other on such a glorious day. Talk about your first kiss. Talk about all the wacky things that have happened since you met. Or, heck, don’t talk at all. Just sit and gaze into one another’s eyes and search out the pilgrim soul within you.”

  “You guys are nuts,” the man said, reaching for his wallet. He fished out two ones and handed them to Max.

  “Donations accepted,” Max said, pointing to the stuffed jar on the table.

  The man grumbled and pulled two more ones from his wallet, stuffing the wad into Max’s open hand.

  “Do you realize,” Steve said, poker-faced, “how much the collected works of Tokyo Osaka cost?”

  “Who?” the man said.

  Steve rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Only the greatest Japanese poet that ever lived, that’s who.”

  “I think I read him in my humanities class back in college, Donald,” the woman said. “Here—” She snapped open her purse and added a crisp five-dollar bill to the crumpled wad in Max’s reopened hand. “You boys are funny.”

  “Thank you, madam,” Max said. “Let me give you a Zen koan to puzzle over while you sit and sip your refreshments.”

  “A what?” she giggled.

  “A koan,” he said. “What is the sound of one lip kissing?”

  “That’s silly,” the woman said.

  “Perhaps,” Steve rejoined. “And perhaps again, it may just change your life.”

  “Come on, Sylvia,” her beau winked, “let’s practice.”

  “Attaboy,” Max said. “A true explorer of the spirit.”

  As soon as the couple left, Steve turned to Max and said, “‘One-lipped koan?’”

  The couple began shrieking with laughter. A bee had passed in front of the man’s face, and while trying to wave it away, he dumped his lemonade down his shirt. He chased his intended through the park, the two of them laughing hysterically. Donald the urbanite tackled his sweetheart to the ground and practiced the one-lipped koan.

  Steve chuckled. “Do you think we changed their lives?”

  “Their day, anyway,” Max said, looking on in amusement.

  “Same thing.”

  Max smiled. “You catch on quick, camerado.”

  33

  Walkabout

  Minutes after Max and Ms. Winters arrived together at the Thoreson’s, Aidos took Max’s hand and led him on a tour of Camelot. Max learned that Aidos had a name for every path they walked, usually that of a great poet, philosopher, or writer. When they turned on to Jefferson Lane, Max inquired how she came to give each path its name.

  “You can’t see them,” Aidos answered, “but these woods are full of words.”

  “Words?”

  “That’s right. I’ve hidden them there myself. It’s part of the Art of Memory that I told you about. Under bushes, on the sides of rocks, along streams, in the tops of trees, everywhere. They are all imprinted with words, stamped by my mind. I call this path Jefferson because it was along here that I engraved the Declaration of Independence. As I walk along it, it unfolds before me like a scroll.”

  Max thought it an intriguing idea. “And if you enter this path on the other end, could you recite it backwards?”

  “Yes, I could.”

  “Cool. The woods really do talk to you!”

  “I suppose it’s my own echo, but, yes, they do speak to me in other ways too.”

  Max wanted to ask her what she meant by ‘other ways,’ but he sensed it was something she preferred not to discuss.

  “You don’t have to be in the place to remember, do you?”

  “No. I can do it anywhere, anytime, because the woods are in me. It is the landscape of my mind, and I can survey it at will. Sometimes at night I go for long walks in the woods without ever leaving my bed, and it’s almost the same as being there. It’s all here,” she pointed to her head, “pressed like flowers in a book between the layers of my mind.”

  As they strolled, Aidos gave Max a demonstration, reciting from the Declaration of Independence, all the while pointing at the ‘text’ from which she was reading.

  “Does your dad know about this?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Can he do it?”

  “No, he hasn’t the desire. He says he doesn’t think he can do it because he crippled his active imagination by having watched too much television. That’s why we don’t have a television. He thinks it distorts and falsifies reality.”

  “You’ve never watched TV?”

  “Once, through a store window in town.”

  “What did you think?”

  “It was hypnotic. It made me uncomfortable.”

  Max laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, I was just trying to picture you lounging on a couch, remote in hand, channel surfing with a bag of Doritos between your legs. But I know what your father means. I don’t let my sisters watch TV anymore. I read to them instead, and they like that a lot.”

  “Certainly,” Aidos said. “After all, if you were a child would you rather watch some TV program where a big brother reads to his sisters, or actually have your own big brother read to you? We are meant to be participants in life, not spectators.”

  As Aidos continued her tour of Camelot, Max’s admiration for the girl doubled and tripled, and doubled again. The earth seemed to vibrate with anticipation wherever she stepped, as if the entire forest begged for her attention. She seemed never to miss a thing. Max wondered if he weren’t half-blind and deaf. Sometimes Aidos would halt mid-step and raise her hand to signal silence. Max strained all his senses, trying to figure out what she had discovered, but not once could he detect the tiny wonder until she revealed it to him.

  Once, near the end of their stroll, she halted with a big grin on her face. Max dispatched all his senses to scout the possibilities, but they returned empty-handed.

  “What?” he whispered.

  Aidos closed her eyes and sniffed at the air, her arm extended, pointing into the dense woods. Slowly she pivoted, as if tracking by radar. She stopped and pointed straight ahead down the path. She counted, “One, two, three…” Her smile grew with each number. Then she opened her eyes and said, “Now!”

  Right then, Beowulf, the four-legged ambassador of love, appeared thirty yards dead ahead. Max thought the dog was as surprised as he was. Beowulf let out a sharp yap, and then came charging. The huge, excited pooch barreled into Aidos’ open arms and plastered her to the forest floor, barking and smothering her with doggie kisses as Aidos laughed uproariously.

  “At last we meet!” Max said, bending over to pet the dog. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Isn’t he? Beowulf, this is Max Stormer. He’s a friend. Say hello and shake.”

  Beowulf barked and lifted up a big, furry paw. Max took his paw and barked back.

  Before rejoining Hardy and Ms. Winters, Aidos showed Max the gardens, workshop, and ‘theater’ behind the house.

  “It’s all so perfect,” he said as they strolled back toward the cabin. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to live here? To live the life that you do? To have the kind of freedom that you know? Do you? Can you?”

  “I know,” she answered. “I do understand.”

  “But can you, really?” he said. “I wonder.”

  “I’m not as naive as you may think.”

  “I didn’t mean… It’s just that you don’t have anything to compare it to. For example, I can feel sorry for the suffering of children in certain parts of the world, but I can’t really imagine what it’s like.”

  “But I believe you can imagine it. Imagination has no boundaries. If you really try. If you’re not afraid. We don’t go certain places in our minds because it makes us very uncomfortable. To acknowledge unpleasant truths implies a responsibility to do something about it, and that’s a burden few people care to bear.”

  As they continued talking, Max’s mind went from simmer to boil. Questions, though
ts, and ideas steamed from his head. Standing before him, he thought, was Aristotle’s great souled man—a teenage girl in cutoffs and a hole-riddled T-shirt: Nietzsche’s superman—a gray-eyed, mop-headed sprite: and Plato’s philosopher king—a pixie princess who ruled over a stretch of wooded hillside.

  Instead of going inside the house, Max and Aidos decided to sit on the back porch swing. Minutes later, they heard Ms. Winters’ sonorous voice carry from the kitchen. She was obviously upset.

  “…Who exactly, I don’t know,” Virginia Winters said. “Greedy hucksters from the city, that’s all I’m sure of. All the town’s movers and shakers are in on the deal too. It’s going through, and soon.”

  “Why here?” Mr. Thoreson asked. “Why not on the other side of town?”

  “It’s secluded over here. That lends more prestige. Also, it creates new traffic through town opening up the ignored west side. Real estate prices have begun to soar, and just this morning I saw a new sign announcing the construction of Pinecrest’s first major mall. And then there are the condos.”

  “Condos?”

  “They go with the resort package. I’ve seen the plans myself. They’re monstrous.”

  “And all of Pinecrest supports this?”

  “Oh, there’s some protest. Myself, Jason Brodie, a couple of others, but nobody’s interested in what we have to say. The streets are flooded with drool. Pinecrest can’t wait. I wouldn’t care so much if it were happening on the other side of town. It’s you and Aidos I’m worried about. This time next year you’ll be hearing the sound of pool-side marimba bands instead of birds, and at night the only lights you’ll see will be coming from the tennis courts…”

  Aidos said, “It’s such a shame.”

  “It stinks,” Max said. He looked at Aidos and saw a single, glistening teardrop hatch from the corner of her eye. It stood wavering for a moment—a dazzling jewel reflecting a beam of the late afternoon sun—and then it rolled over and sped down off her face. She showed no emotion, not even a sigh. Whatever she felt seemed to have been encapsulated in that single, great tear.

  “I’ll be going soon, Max.”

  “Going? What are you talking about? You don’t have to go anywhere.”