Love Story: In The Web of Life

by Ken Renshaw

  "I'll have to read up on the era. There was confusing stuff I don't understand. I have a sense that there is more of that story to be recalled from that space-time."

  Tina's eyes were wide as she asked, "Do you really want to follow all that by looking a Monet's Water Lilies?"

  "Yes, I need a change of space-time."

  The Norton Simon Museum sits on Colorado, the main street of Pasadena, on the path of the New Year's Day Rose Parade. As we walked up to the unassuming grey–tiled building, we passed several bigger-than-life Rodin bronze sculptures in a courtyard. We could see through the glass lobby into the garden with a large pond, hundreds of trees and shrubs, and many pieces of sculpture worked into the landscape. Two exhibition wings connected to the lobby. We went directly into the garden to have lunch.

  As we sat at one of the garden's wrought iron tables, enjoying a simple lunch, Tina said, "I love this place, where we can sit and look over the pond and see works by Rodin, Laurens, Henry Moore, Hepworth and Maillol and others. What a visual feast!"

  "I'm impressed by your knowledge about art," I commented.

  "My course work for my masters degree has included quite a few art history and art criticism courses. As I have really learned to look at art, I have found a different level of appreciation. With some artists' works, after I look at them a while I start to feel the emotion of what the artist was experiencing when they painted the picture. For instance, one of my favorite pictures, Sous Bois, by Cezanne, in the LA County Museum, shows a scene in a wood. As I study the picture I can smell the leaves, feel the humidity, feel the love of the scene, and marvel at the shapes of the trees. It is as though I am getting into Cezanne's head.

  "Another time, I visited the Rothko Chapel in Houston, a chapel that features big panels, almost black, painted a short time before Rothko committed suicide. The chapel was supposed to be a place of meditation for people of all faiths. All I experienced was Rothko's utter despair, a sense of total failure, one of the lowest vibrations I have ever experienced. When I left there, I almost felt suicidal. Even now, when I think about the visit, I can feel Rothko's despair. Aargh! I have to keep my mind out of there.

  "Maybe that is a feature of great art: it takes you into the artist's head."

  I observed, "You know, a couple of months ago, I would have thought you were being irrational, talking about experiencing dead artist's emotions by looking at their paintings. Now, it all seems perfectly reasonable to me."

  Tina leaned over and squeezed my hand, and gave me a look that I shall never forget. It was as though we were suddenly bound together.

  Then, she looked a little embarrassed and said, "Lets go into the galleries."

  We spent about an hour looking at the Impressionist and Post–impressionist paintings by Manet, van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, etc. without saying much. I did notice that the vibration I sensed from her changed significantly when she looked at some paintings.

  After a while, Tina said, "Let's walk in the garden, I am getting visually saturated."

  As we walked into the garden, I said, "Maybe that's one of the features of great art, it is a ticket to travel in space-time to be perceptually with an artist, or a person, in another place in space-time."

  Tina didn't respond; she simply gave me another version of the look she gave me at lunch.

  The garden is surrounded by high brown tile surfaced walls, the same height and color as the as the museum. In the center there is a long pond, covered with patches of water lilies and edged with a variety of rushes and reeds. A wide variety of trees, some in bloom, filled the garden and shaded a path that meanders around the pond. Bronze and granite statues are placed around the pond and under the trees. The late afternoon sun reflected off the pond and projected a soft ripple of light on many statues.

  As we walked from statue to statue, we didn't talk much. We looked at each statue for a minute or more, sometimes walking over to read the nameplate, and looking at the surrounding plants or trees. We came to a large dark metal statue of a nude woman, maybe double life-size, who appeared to be tumbling sideways into the patch of lavender surrounding the base, her arms stretched out in the air, her feet flailing with only her hip touching the base.

  I went over to the nameplate and read aloud, "Air."

  Tina said, "By Aristide Maillol, right?"

  I nodded yes.

  "Tina, I kind of feel like this when I am around you, at times like today, like I’m about to tumble."

  "Me, too," she answered. "But into a bed of lavender isn't all that bad."

  I took her hand and said, "I think we should live together. I want to be around you as much as possible."

  She turned and put her hands on my cheeks, gave me that look again, smiled her mischievous smile, said, "I would like that. Your place or mine?" and gave me a long kiss.

  "We will work that out," I said with a big smile.

  "Is this only until you go off to war next Wednesday?"

  "No," I said looking directly into her eyes, "I'm glad you are such a careful listener. I plan for this to be for much longer and..."

  She cut me off and said, "I must warn you I'll have to redecorate your place a little bit, definitely adding some art work."

  "No Rothko's, I hope."

  With a sly grin she said, "We'll see."

  ****

  We decided to start our togetherness at my place. Tomorrow was a legal holiday, my office was closed, and I didn't want to go there anyway. We stopped at Tina's, picked up a few things, and then went to a market. Tina said she wanted to cook a really fine dinner. I, feeling very domestic, was comfortable with the idea. Somehow, all of a sudden, I felt as though we were a pair. I thought to myself as we climbed the stairs to my apartment, 'Look at me, carrying bags of groceries full of real food into my apartment, walking behind someone else who lives here.'

  Tina cooked a marvelous dinner. We ate by candlelight to the sound of romantic music, my contribution. It was a marvelous evening. I fell into the lavender.

  ****

  The next morning, I awoke to the sound of Tina humming and the smell of breakfast and coffee filling the air. I lay in bed and reveled at my new domestic scene. We lolled and loved away the day, my best-ever holiday.

  In the late afternoon, we were sitting on the couch in the living room still in out bathrobes. Tina, leaned her back on me as I read a book, and she was working with my iPad.

  "I have been researching German World War I flying," said Tina. "At the start of the war, nobody was very experienced as a pilot. Also, they hadn't figured out how to have the machine guns shoot through the propellers. The machine guns were mounted on the top wings of the biplanes so it was difficult to reload them. They had to stand up in the cockpit–that must have been scary– or use cumbersome track sort of things to pull the guns down to the cockpit to reload. All in all it sounded very awkward.

  "At the start of the war a medal, nicknamed the Blue Max, but officially the Order Pour le Me‘rite, was awarded to pilots who shot down eight enemy aircraft. There weren't that many enemy aircraft to shoot down, and they had to spend too much time messing with their guns during a dogfight. Eight victories, as they called them, were an achievement.

  "Later in the war, they invented a way to shoot the guns through the propellers, so the guns could be sitting right in front of the pilots where they could be reloaded or unjammed easily. There were also more enemy aircraft to shoot down. They had to raise the award level to sixteen.

  "Even later in the war there were thousands of enemy aircraft, many piloted by boys with only a few hours of training who had no flying skills to use evading attackers. They had to raise the award level to thirty.

  "Here is a picture of the medal," she said as she handed the iPad to me.

  I looked at the picture and felt my heart sink. "Wow!" I said, "That creates an emotional response in me. That must relate to the experience in my space-time recall with Tom." The medal was a blue cross with gold eagles filling in the space bet
ween the arms of the cross. On the arms of the cross were the words, Pour le Me‘rite.

  "That award must be why everyone was so competitive in my recall. I can really feel the energy on that. I must have been striving to win the medal," I said as I handed the iPad back to Tina. "A strand of my 'web of life' must be tied to that space-time if I can feel intense emotion from looking at the medal."

  Tina turned a few pages on the iPad and then handed it back to me saying, "Look, here is a picture of one of their old airplanes."

  As I looked at the picture, my body again reacted and I felt an emotion of loss or of grief. "That must have been one of the kind of airplanes I flew." I closed my eyes a few seconds and thought about the airplane. "Wow!" as I think about it, I know exactly what is smells like, the sound of the engine, the exhaust fumes. I also can perceive the jolts on my rear end when it taxies." I paused for another moment and said, "I also know exactly how it flies, the response of the stick, and the G's as it turns and rolls. I can hear the machine guns. They are really loud.

  "Let's change the subject or do something else. This subject is freaking me out."

  "'Freaking–me–out' is not good." Replied Tina. She squirmed a little bit and then exclaimed in a false southern accent, "Oh dearie me, just look how my bathrobe is falling off my shoulders. What am I to do?"

  As I walked into my office on Tuesday, I didn't even notice Carolyn doing her thing because I was feeling so good. When I got to my suite, Zaza wistfully sighed her "Good morning." Then, she looked at me and said, "OK, this looks like a dozen long–stemmed roses sort of day. Did you get Flopsey and Mopsey and Cottontail together somewhere? OK, I get it, one dozen for each, one for Saturday, one for Sunday, one for yesterday."

  "No flowers," I said. I saw a puzzled appear on Zaza's face.

  Zaza said, "You have an unexpected visitor in the lobby. He said his name is Mr. Burton. Do you know who he is?"

  "No, can't say I do. Is he there now?"

  "I'll check," said Zaza as she buzzed Carolyn.

  "He's there."

  I walked into the lobby and a tall man in a dark navy blue suit and dark aviator glasses rose out of his chair and said, "Mr. Willard?"

  I said, "Yes," as he handed me his business card. It said 'Mr. A Burton, Special Representative, EB Services.'

  I stared at the card for a minute until I remembered who EB Services was, Colson's Security consultants, and then nodded my head in recognition.

  "Please come into my office," I said.

  "Can we take a walk?" he said.

  "OK," I said. I then turned to Carolyn who was pretending to look another way, and said, "Tell Zaza I will be gone for a while." I followed Mr. Burton to the elevator, and we got in without him saying a word. As we rode down, he didn't speak. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him staring at the door.

  As we exited the elevator he said, "Lets go out into the plaza."

  Our Century City building is situated on the edge of a park-like plaza that is shared with two other high-rise buildings. The plaza has a central fountain and many benches under trees or next to landscaped plots for people to relax or have lunch. I followed Mr. Burton to an isolated bench where he sat down.

  "Please excuse the precautions, they are part of our business. As you know, we have been retained by the Colson Foundation to provide security for you and your key witnesses from now until the end of the trial. I am aware of Dr. Montgomery's scare at your parking garage, the discovery of surveillance devices on your car, the person seen around your equipment at CrystalAire airport, and at Rocky Butte, and in Ogden. We know who he is. We have a plan for your security and the security of your witnesses at Rocky Butte.

  "First, we would like to provide surveillance of your equipment at CrystalAire airport. It sits in the open and we would like to park some sort of vehicle in the vicinity that we can conceal a surveillance camera in. Do you have any suggestions?"

  I thought for a second and then said, "I sometimes rent a jeep sedan from the tow pilot, Dan, to tow my sailplane trailer for off-road retrieves. Rent Dan's jeep and park it near my trailer. It would not seem out of the ordinary since a credible coat of dust covers it. You can trust Dan. Tell him you are doing it for me so I can catch whoever has been messing around with my trailer."

  "We will do that," Burton replied. "Now, here are the arrangements for Rocky Butte.

  "We have leased an upscale Dude Ranch near Rocky Butte, which has a main house and five first-class cabins. You can stay in the main house with a couple of our people. Buster, one of my operatives, will be your bodyguard. His wife, Sofia, will be a bodyguard, and will prepare the meals for the witnesses and other visitors. The pair are experts at what they do.

  "Your witnesses and other visitors, such as your firm's staff, or people from Colson, will stay in the cabins and we will provide transportation to and from the Rocky Butte Courthouse. Witnesses and visitors will fly commercially to Sacramento and then will be flown, by us, on a chartered light plane to the airstrip on the ranch property. Witnesses can bring spouses or significant others for their stay, but nobody goes into Rocky Butte for anything but court business." Burton paused, and I interrupted.

  "How about me, can I bring my significant other?" (I was delighted at saying that.)

  Burton didn't flinch, but I thought he was mulling over the fact that they hadn't found a significant other in checking me out.

  "And," I added, "I need to go into Rocky Butte to mingle with people so that they will consider me more like a local. The local grapevine is an asset I intend to use. The grapevine gave me the intelligence that there was someone checking up on me, the guy that was also spotted in Ogden."

  Without pausing Burton said, "Of course, in answer to both requests, but, your guest shouldn't go into Rocky Butte during the trial. We don't want to risk a hostage situation. Whenever you go into town you must be accompanied by our man or his wife, your bodyguards."

  "Fine," I replied.

  "I understand you want to go to Rocky Butte day after tomorrow."

  "Yes, I plan to drive up. I have to take a lot of stuff."

  "No, we would strongly recommend flying. Our man will pick you up at the airport. Fly from Burbank to Sacramento on Air California." He took out his iPhone and texted a message. Can you make the 9:15?"

  I said, "Yes."

  He then said a courier would come to my office tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 to pick up any packages of material I needed in Rocky Butte. His phone buzzed, he read the text message and said, "You are on the 9:15.

  "No one is to make their own reservations, but everyone should use their own name and passport when they travel."

  "This afternoon, a courier will deliver a letter of travel arrangements and instructions for you and another letter for your witnesses, and spouses or significant others. We insist on making travel arrangements for everyone who will visit the ranch. Anybody arriving unexpectedly will be substantially inconvenienced."

  "I get it," I said. I thought 'shot-on-sight.'

  "Fine," he replied. "It is a pleasure doing business with you. We are certain everyone will enjoy the arrangements."

  He stood up and shook my hand and said, "Have a safe and successful visit to Rocky Butte."

  As he walked away, I wondered if everyone Colson did business with was so wishy-washy.

  When I got back to the office, Zaza said, "Who was that? Carolyn said he was so spooky she was hiding under her desk. She thought he was one of those Men In Black, like in the movie, and he would zap her memory or come back and machine gun the place."

  I told Zaza he was Mr. Burton–I never got his first name or even saw the eyes he had hidden under his glasses–from EB Services, Colson's security consultants, here to discuss arrangements for people coming to Rocky Butte for the trial. I briefed Zaza on what Burton had outlined and the arrangements. I didn't tell her about my significant other arrangements.

  As promised, the courier arrived with the letters. I emailed Candice that I w
as sending her detailed travel arrangement by a courier, that we had rented a Dude Ranch, and that I hoped Tom could join us at our expense. I did the same for Phil Gallagher at UCLA. I also invited Steve and Georgia to come spend a couple of days at the ranch, to make sure he was readily available, and described the security concerns.

  When I arrived home, the apartment was filled with the lovely smell of something cooking. There were candles on the table with a vase of flowers, and place settings of unfamiliar plates.

  "In here," I heard Tina call from the kitchen. As I walked in, I saw her stirring something in a large frying pan, also not mine.

  "Thai stir-fry," she said as she walked over and greeted me with a big, long sensuous kiss. "Just a minute, I am almost finished, she said turning back to cooking and then turning off the stove. "Pour the wine."

  I poured the wine and gave her a glass as she wiped her hands on a towel. She grabbed me around the waist, backed me up, pressed me against a cabinet, and looked up, batted her eyes and then said in a husky voice, "How was your day, big boy?"

  "Great," I stammered. "Look, I have a surprise for you. If you want, you can join me at Rocky Butte. We have rented a dude ranch there, complete with caretakers and a cook. The client will provide transportation and make all arrangements. When is school over?"

  "Friday." She paused and then asked. "Can I come up Saturday?"

  "That will be wonderful!"

  She pressed me against the cabinet again, so hard I could hardly breathe, turned slightly and unbuttoned her blouse, then pressed against me again, looked up, batted her eyes and said, in her fake southern accent, "Oh dearie me, dinner won't be ready for a while. Oh! What should we do?"

  ****

  Chapter Seven

  DAVID UNDERSTANDS