The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

  The first couple of years had been a little rough. They had undone a number of preconceptions about how easy it would all be. The money did not quite fall into his lap. He actually had to get out and hustle for it. He had to make contact with other individuals in the Hispanic community who actually needed a loan. This required numerous phone calls and almost as many rejections. Being Hispanic, speaking the lingo, did not automatically add up to a loan. And of course none of that took into account that not everyone who needed or wanted a loan could qualify. Oftentimes, even after all the paperwork had been submitted, the lender said no; and even though the decision might seem arbitrary, all one could do was move on…hope that the application might get a fair shake elsewhere.

  Still, in a profession with a high fall-out rate, he had managed to survive. He had not triumphed; if he closed two loans a month, he considered himself lucky, and the cut was decent. But for a man coming out of an industry where the individual could fall from a scaffolding or wind up with a permanent back injury, he didn’t have much to regret. Changing from a profession that could jeopardize his health and safety to one where such concerns played little or no part had been a no-brainer. Besides, now he had options that had previously been unavailable to him. With a flexible schedule under his belt, he set out to improve himself.

  The first year of college had gone well enough. He completed a number of night courses and then moved into a daytime curriculum. Being a native-born Spanish speaker, he was a natural for a major in Spanish studies. He enjoyed learning about Spanish art, familiarizing himself with the cultural and historical perspectives of Spanish-America, and he especially liked survey courses in Spanish literature. He wanted to go on; and, indeed, earning a bachelor’s degree became his ultimate goal. But he also had another goal—to fit in.

  Academic life had its own set of demands, which he readily accepted and tried to accommodate. But being on a college campus with thousands of middle-class kids struck a daunting note. The hordes of students coming and going, up and down corridors and throughout the common areas, represented a stratum of American society that, as a minority from a lower socioeconomic background, he did not relate to. Not only that, but the several years he had spent working as a construction laborer imposed upon his consciousness an additional stigma. Like many before him burdened with quasi-paranoiac fears of social rejection, he had to struggle with a set of bugaboos that probably, for the most part, were unfounded. Understandably, when he met Heidi and Jody, he only too easily succumbed to their blandishments.

  The two women had by then mostly abandoned, as a full-time avocation, Heidi’s bread runs. Both had become full-fledged environmentalists, intent on bringing The Word to as many people as possible. With Salvation in mind, they had set up a table in the student union and had decorated it with telling photographs of the environmental devastation being wrought at that very moment by uncaring corporations and utilities in the throes of befouling the atmosphere as well as the oceans. They had not yet metamorphosed into the radical group they would later become: rallies, distribution of literature, small-group discussions, and bumper stickers comprised the main body of their activities. New to the cause, they had not yet adopted a more militaristic approach to enlightening others.

  The first time Carlos met them, they were sitting behind a table in the student lounge. They had a pile of leaflets in front of them, and at each end of the table was a cardboard-backed thematic picture cut from a magazine. Drawn more by their receptive smiles than by their literature, he had approached tentatively. In a polite voice, he had inquired if he might have one of the leaflets to take with him.

  “Of course…that’s why they’re here,” Heidi had answered gaily, immediately seeing his need for encouragement. “And, here, take an extra one to give to a friend, if you like.”

  “No, just for myself,” he had said, thanking her for the stapled, two-page leaflet she handed him.

  Feeling a shyness coming on that inhibited his ability to completely be himself in a college milieu, he started to walk away when Heidi asked if he would like to attend one of their meetings.

  “A meeting?”

  “Sure, we have them a couple of times a month…at my house. Would you like to come? It’s only for an hour or two, and we mainly discuss ways to make people more aware of environmental issues. You might find it interesting, and maybe you’ll make some new friends.”

  “I work, and I have my classes. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “An hour or two twice a month is not a lot of time. Why don’t you come for one meeting?”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “Good. Let me have your phone number, and I’ll give you a call the next time we schedule one.”

  That had all happened a year and a half before. Since then, Carlos had come into his own. With each meeting and each new group activity, his confidence had grown. The fears he had built up in his head about the differences between himself and those he cast in a superior light had trickled off. Merely by associating with individuals from other strata of society, he had acquired a knowledge essential to establishing an inner equilibrium between himself and others. At Heidi’s little dinner parties, during freewheeling discussions ranging from Don Quixote’s battling windmills to the revolutionary idea of abolishing Congress and rewriting the Constitution to allow direct participation (Heidi maintained that, with the technology available nowadays, it could be done and would directly involve the electorate in the decision-making process), he had interacted in ways that assuaged all the old anxieties. Over time, he had become more assertive in expressing himself, was not afraid anymore to give his opinion. He even opened up at school, becoming friendlier and more outgoing.

  Whether or not the transformation had a bearing on his decision to distance himself from Heidi’s group after the accident, it certainly made it easier. He might have walked out in any case, regardless, but having come into a stronger sense of himself as an individual, with his own identity, he had fewer qualms about taking the step; in fact, felt rather proud of himself for doing so. Even so, relationships hard-won, and for the most part beneficial, seldom end without second thoughts. Whatever passion precipitates a blow-up, tempers usually subside, and life goes on as before.

  Two weeks after the eruption between himself and the three women, he got a call from Heidi. He had just awakened from a slumberous nap and lay atop the queen-size bed in the bedroom of a small condo he had recently purchased. It had a view of the river, across from a loading depot and not far from a waterfront parkway. In the early hours of the morning, he could step out onto his small balcony, in his bathrobe, and have his coffee or just sit and watch the city wake up.

  “We need you, Carlos,” he heard Heidi say. “You’ve meant a lot to this organization, to all of us.”

  “Yeah, I been meaning to call you, man,” he said sleepily into the phone, glad to hear her voice again. “But I’ve been busy with loans and school.”

  “It sounds like you could use a break.”

  “Unas vacaciones, you mean, a real break! Yeah, that’d sure be nice. So what you been up to?”

  “I’ve been getting everybody on board for our next thing…”

  “Que cosa, Heidi?”

  “That’s right, you don’t know about it yet, do you?”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, man. What are we talking about?”

  Heidi told him about Rick’s trip to Montana with his friend, and how she and the others wanted to go along. It seemed farfetched, she admitted, but the others were all for it. She wanted to know if they could count on him. There would be no bulldozers involved, she added.

  “Esta me bromando? Are you kidding me?”

  “Yo estoy serioso, amigo.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, Carlos. This could be big. Nothing like it has ever been done before. It’ll send a clear message that wildlife has the right to exist, even if it’s sometimes inconvenient and done at our expense.”

  “Ooh—w
ow! I don’t know, man. And all the way to Montana?”

  “We went to Cleveland, Carlos.”

  “Yeah—but…”

  “Think about it…sleep on it. Then give me a call. Okay?”

  “Man, I don’t know. I mean—”

  “Just think about it, Carlos. That’s all I ask. And, incidentally, all your amigos say hola!”

  “Hola to them, as well, Heidi. But, listen, man, I talk to you later. Okay?”

  “Okay, Carlos.”

  He hung up the phone and went to his liquor cabinet. Pouring himself a double shot of Jack Daniel’s, he carried it out to the balcony and, sitting in the late-afternoon sunshine of a beautiful October day, he sipped it with all the thoughtfulness of a man contemplating one of life’s more profound and befuddling absurdities.

  That he, Heidi, and the others had danced too close to the flames, singeing themselves in the process, only a blind man could deny. And the trouble was not over yet. No one knew the final outcome. A police inquiry could still turn up evidence that would damn them all to hell. At this point, there were no guarantees. Nothing to inspire a feeling of security. They could all be blindsided today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. From an official perspective, so long as the circumstances surrounding Dalt’s death remained in limbo, none of them could rest easy. Yet barely three weeks had gone by and here the group was at it again. He had to wonder.

  The realization called for another shot of whiskey, which he duly poured into the double tumbler and took back out to the balcony.

  At this juncture, his own inclination pushed him in the direction of cutting himself loose from further involvement, for good and always. He had a date with his own destiny and had to consider the consequences of not following through. With animosity towards none and goodwill towards all, he thought the best course would be to store that chapter of his life in his memory banks, where he could always relish it as una juerga grande, a great lark; once it was safely tucked away, he could get on with his life. He lately had been toying with the idea of taking up another activity, anyway, one that offered its own kind of adrenaline rush.

  Finishing his whiskey, he set the glass on a kitchen counter-top and went into his bedroom. From a long wooden crate UPS had delivered two days before, he took out a rifle of such craftsmanship and beauty that one could easily be fooled into overlooking its utilitarian value. But of lethal utilitarian value it was.

  He had seen the ad in a rifle magazine and had become intrigued with owning one. It had a history going well back into the 1800s, even before the opening of the Wild West, and had been used by hunters and sportsmen ever since. Its stock and forearm grip were made of American walnut, and it had a brass butt plate, a brass receiver, and a brass barrel band. A .44 magnum caliber gave it sufficient brute power to stop a grizzly or bring down a buffalo. And its lever action had a reputation attested to by any number of cowboys and cavalry-men of the Old West. A classic in every sense, with precision-crafted telescopic sights added, and employing a heavy-grained, jacketed shell, he could easily imagine himself out on some windblown stretch of hard earth or high up on a ridge top in pursuit of big game. From now on, that’s what he was—a big-game hunter!

  Another splash of Jack Daniel’s from a nearly half-empty bottle bolstered the thought. Briefly, he even sketched out a trip to the Far North, to the land of grizzlies and polar bears. In his mind’s eye, he pictured an evening of sitting around a potbellied stove, listening to a hunting guide’s tale of a close encounter with one of the mighty bruins. Repeated shots of whiskey created a warm glow of camaraderie and good-fellowship, the kind hardly attainable in any other circumstance. Hearty laughter and awe-inspired admiration imparted to the moment a memory to be savored for life. The next morning, of course, after a manly meal of buckwheat pancakes, fried eggs, and a healthy slice of ham, he’d be all set to pit himself against the wiliness of the dangerous beast. In the chill of early autumn, under an iron-gray sky, he’d emerge from the hunting cabin and, rifle in hand and horse all saddled up, in anticipation of the hunt, he’d feel profoundly alive.

  Pouring another dash of “The Jack” into his glass, he swirled it contemplatively. Momentarily he juxtaposed his hunting reverie with the image of going out to Montana (prime hunting country, no less!) and shooting some guy’s cows. He had to smile at the incongruity. It brought to mind the phrase “weekend warrior” or “paintball warfare.” It was tantamount to shooting wooden ducks at a carnival shooting gallery or taking potshots at rabbits and squirrels. It left a huge gap between thinking of himself in the more macho role of stalking a bear through the trees and up the side of a mountain and a Saturday morning at the local firing range, trying to score a bull’s-eye on a paper target. And it hardly did justice to his newest possession—a two-thousand-dollar hunting rifle capable of shattering a small boulder at a hundred and fifty yards out, not to mention tearing apart bone and flesh at the same distance and beyond. The likelihood that such a magnificent weapon might be used for something as inglorious as gunning down a placid bovine just didn’t click right; in fact, it struck him as warped.

  On the other hand…

  On the other hand, as ignoble as the thought seemed on its surface, he had to admit to a certain saving grace. Cows, to be sure, did not exactly stand for the kind of challenge he sought; the word itself hardly applied. But, going beyond the ridiculous, he realized the point to be made had the same credibility as sprucing up Mobley Johnson’s backyard with kitchen trash. The lesson itself overshadowed, even negated, the absurdity. It counted for more than the outlandishness involved. No one could dispute that slamming a coal shovel down on a bug would kill the bug a hundred times over, but if done to draw attention to the fact that the bug had to go, what difference did it make whether one used a coal shovel or a flyswatter? By a similar token, he supposed killing a cow with a weapon intended to give proud boast to a feat of manly courage and primordial hunting skill shouldn’t matter, so long as the word got out—that the wanton destruction of wildlife, even at the expense of losing a few cows, carried with it a moral lesson.

  By the time he managed to work his way through a ratiocination of conflicting thoughts and arrive at this new interpretation, the level in the bottle of Jack Daniel’s had dropped below the quarter mark. The sun had moved inexorably towards the western horizon, and a deep shadow had fallen across the balcony, leaving the living room interior in a dimmer light. In the silence of the late afternoon, alone in his two-hundred-thousand-dollar condominium, he decided that going to Montana might be fun after all.

  Helping himself to another scoosh of The Jack, he picked up his phone and dialed Heidi’s number.

  32

  Sitting at his desk in the small, cramped office he shared with one other teaching assistant, Mike looked up from grading a stack of composition papers. A blond young man from his Comp 101 class stood in the doorway.

  “Come in,” he said, smiling. “Come in.”

  The young man entered and sat down in a chair at the end of the desk. Setting it at his feet, he unburdened himself of a book satchel slung purse-like over his shoulder, and smiled hopefully.

  “You’re Mister…” Mike recognized him from one of his three comp classes but did not recall his name.

  “Terry Blackman.”

  “That’s right. Forgive me…I haven’t got everyone’s name straight yet. But what’s up?”

  “It’s about the paper you assigned us…I need more time.”

  He listened to the standard tale of woe he had heard so often from students whose facility with the spoken word far exceeded their facility with the written word. In his own college composition courses, he himself had excelled at the task of stringing words together in a coherent, progressive fashion, only to arrive at a logical conclusion. For whatever reason—advanced writing classes in high school or simple, innate ability—he had never had the same problems so many students nowadays seemed to have. His own rise among the ranks of eager young men clambering to join
an exalted brotherhood of English professionals had been swift. His talent having been duly recognized by a procession of mentoring father figures, he had moved along easily from lower division courses into those at the upper level. So successful had he been that, at the beginning of his junior year, he was very soon taking on extracurricular assignments from professionals who had him writing some of their own papers. In return for relieving them from the onus of researching and writing about whatever subject matter they might want to expound on and have published, he quickly wound up on a well-greased track to becoming eligible for a master’s program and, hence, in line for one of the few plum teaching assistant jobs available. The next step, of course, was to follow the same proven method for getting into a doctoral program.

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  The blond young man hesitated, then blurted out, “I just need more time. I mean, with all the other things I have to squeeze into my schedule, I really feel sort of overwhelmed. I’m taking a full load plus two, and it’s taking almost all the time I have.”

  “Maybe you should drop something…?”

  “I’m afraid I might have to.”

  “Have you turned in any of your assignments yet?”

  “The first two. But this one’s longer…”

  “How long is it?”

  “You told us in class, no less than eight pages.”

  “Really? Well…have you done anything at all?”

  The young man withdrew several handwritten pages from his manila folder and handed them to Mike, who scanned through them quickly.

  “It looks like you’ve made some progress. But maybe you should put it aside for now and come back to it later. You can hand it in as a late assignment if you like. If I feel you’ve done a good job, I won’t penalize you. Okay?”