The Wages of Sin

proem

Water hangs like a bell slung round heaven's neck. Winds come to lead the calm away.

Then a paroxysm revolves to engulf all. Like a galaxy made of water, it begins in the southern sea and spins a pinwheel northward. The typhoon is a child's top skittering across a tile floor. Yet the cartwheel is slower than the hand of an hour stretching across the cosmos.

The land is an attractive wall to the storm. Rain and wind explode upon the earth. Floods and mudslides are the vomit of devils. Fury plucks trees out as easily as loose teeth. A wind full of water is too fast for humanity. Shelters collapse and the soil runs with the people's blood. Human life becomes a meagre panic, unnoticed.

Go to hide. Among those who revere life, natural forces are personalities made of good and ill humor. Man and woman survive so long as nature can be kept outside: it's safer in the city, a few floors up. Light your candles. If you tremble, pray for your insignificance. Prayer answers the feeling that doesn't want to fear anymore.

Typhoons are heralds of sadness and rejuvenation. Words are weak before nature: what is a man to the clawing, outraged wind of destruction? Maybe nature only circumscribes our understanding. Yet the truth we long to know remains the latitude upon our faith. Reason is the inevitable longitude. Alas, the truth cannot answer for belief: the quest is too difficult for us to fathom. Perhaps the truth of belief is not grown up yet. Our beliefs still depend on that particular place upon Earth where chance gives birth to us. Perhaps this is a good thing, our most human quality.

One unfit to wander, wanders anyway, listless, resigned to suffer complete rejection and failure. It is amazing and strange, how the trees continue to shimmy, and the birds chatter with the same punctilio -- without a poet to invoke them! For even as the excitement of a new discovery thaws us free of sleep's rhythms, a conservative instinct for selfish preservation again becalms the wish for imagination. Our hearts regret the loss with a guilty suspicion: so what was that thing, literature, anyway?

We men and women -- we have always been endowed with an essential and divine moral prerogative. But look how our words and ideas have stood alone to take the blame -- not our minds, nor the mistaken actions with which we have mislead our civilization! Who fails to notice the many inversions and outright evasions of responsibility?

The furthest from real power are always the poets. How loudly they have written, and to no avail! Nearest to murder, the chemical change occurs by itself, automatically. Meanwhile, cowardly political-industrial might pretends to confer, but prefers to defer, defer, defer. We are finished but to mawkishly cry for peace, for grace! Our lies really are lazy. Why do we pray for peace? Do the lovely flowers in your garden ask for peace? Living upon the husks of justice, we put one hand on hip and we talk about humanity as if it were something we had forgotten. Our mental block is like a trademark registered in America, and the product, manufactured in Asia, is exported at great profit to Europe. It's so easy for us to watch destitute Africans starve to death.

Meanwhile, the tycoons of mass murder have been salted away already -- frozen in that perpetual necessity for doing wrong to make things right. But the stupid murderers who lead the world will disagree with such an accusation -- as if they sincerely believe they cooperate, with their poison and guns, so that law and order will still be respected. Rational nonsense is the understudy who puppets the master's lies.

To wear the mask of wit upon deceit is the mark of fabled wisdom. The wise are peculiar creatures. Their hair is often as long as it is short. The point is that they look upon one another in admiration of qualities that the hard worker might find shocking. The wise respect each other's practiced laziness: enlightenment is to know absolute acceptance and resignation. The wise have uniform tolerance and hindsight and fellow feeling on their side, and that's if they really are wise and not play-acting! Remember, the most that the wise will ever allow themselves to do is to talk, or find someplace new to go.

Who doesn't fall into some pretty pinch and struggle to scratch out some semblance of individuality? People must make a living grossly -- by proclaiming things like the end of literature and history. So we are all evil fiends, compelled to chatter about the fracture of civilization, and that we ought to be ashamed of our selfish ineptitude. Whose fault is it for not trying to see the world through your worn-out language? He's exactly like Y, and she's just like X. A system of social advancement exclusive of artistry, intelligence and originality -- community becomes a neutered, onanistic imbecile feebly sucking on endlessly reproduced images of worthy status, glib deity and lusty power.

Usually, the storm slugs at people and things before anyone in the backwoods can be well enough informed. From the viewpoint of an eye in the heavens sending a signal to a bunkered monitor on another continent, tragedy is only a spectacle. It isn't even as annoying as your own heartache. The satellite can't show how inert things are transformed into trajectories. So, we forget the eons between language and creed.

Nor do we see how chance so becomes fate -- flattering accident with design. Yes, chance does so become fate. We live beside death. We earn by law or risk all faith without it. We know wrong, and each of us can do good.

Who spurns the bride, and why? So simple it must be. Storms turn upon a precise balance of forces. Typhoon is born of a sage's tropical depression. He deserves no pity. Peace, war and truth are human designs: nature knows nothing of ideas, or of good and evil.

What is this tiny book? Too serious -- an unhappy satire -- a predictable, cheap thriller... Laugh at ignominy and frustration -- that's the beginning of freedom. And don't fret, Mr. Popular Author -- money will buy you -- tomorrow, as today and yesterday.

Of scheming dreams, a tale is made. A glance at people unknown to you. One life or two, no more than a few of us need ever meet, for each to keep the other -- a brother, lover or foe.

The typhoon twists upon the waters of a falling Earth.

Dear friend, listen close for the hidden wind...

I. five o'clock shadow

"He cannot conceive anything outside without an idea inspired by his own design. This fact, man pretends, is insignificant to his imagination. The mind is free, he believes. You will want to believe, with him, that some world beyond the human can be ours to understand. But I believe that the design we share is a being limited by isolated intelligence -- a fixity of form in nature. The mind is alone, and in each lives the same human landscape. Even the purest dream cannot forget its human shape. The imagination has limits made of sharing an intelligible tongue. Someone may want to argue that another earthly language may offer us an unforeseen new world. I say he is mistaken, and believe that this other world is also only human. For you and I, supreme insight remains impossible. To imagine the divine or alien being is neither to experience its intelligence nor its way of being."

A red line was stricken under that. Insensibly scrawled words read, "Try again. You know what we want. You probably know how to do it. 6 months. Last chance."

Then... ah, then! The river water had been a chill indigo. Spring always meant wind. He had let the first page fly. Page two looked much the same. The pages fell, a brief flutter until they caught the wind like sails in the air, and flew away beneath the black steel bridge.

"On the Imaginative Quality of Metaphysical Thought" became little white specks on the water, then was lost to the prancing sunlight. Sliced and glittering, the water was ignorant of his world. So, it welcomed his work.

Today, the wind was a restless spirit. Sandy's absent regret was effaced by melancholy made of ceaseless wailing wind and rain streaming over the window. The train had stopped moving. But nobody was getting on or off.

The water of consciousness flies free from the sleepy, whirling top.

Last year's thesis was a small thing. Hundreds before him had suffered like losses. Very many were unable to play the compliant mind games required by university life. His past felt a lot like the trapped feeling everyone in the train was experiencing.

He didn't want to glance outside again. But he did, only to see an aggravated flurry of wind and water, a horizontal slash against faint grey light. A Taiwanese youngster gazed at branches snapping back and forth against his window, a mottle of myriad green ovals.

People were trying to talk above the reverberating roar. They were silenced as the train slid from among the slapping branches like a fluorescent snake.

A black tunnel swallowed the train, cutting the storm off like a lock of hair. Muffled voices suddenly swelled into sharply focused babbling. Infant cries mingled with adult anger and fear. The emotional cacophony did not last and even the crying child was silenced. All the adults listened for the end of the tunnel. How distantly hollow was the wind.

The train exited the tunnel into a premature dusk of hysterical clouds. The water trebled across the panes. Inching past some lights, the train had found its village.

Nobody stood on the platform. Then a line of people leaned into the wind, stepping slowly, holding their arms around each other. A suitcase dropped and broke open. The clothing was a flock of ghosts snatched away by a spirit in the wind.

The blue capped conductor was waving everyone out from Sandy's coach. Pushing into the night, Sandy felt the wind freight him. Hunching down, the blond Canadian took a few clipped steps against the mighty typhoon, as if climbing a steep path. The storm ripped away the last tatters of dusk. Sandy stood near the exit, sightless, peering into the livid night.

Maybe a bus would come. He didn't want to wait. Sandy walked onto a street, knowing the wind could fling death at him -- a tree, a catapult signboard, some shattered glass.

The wind came sideways. Stretching his left arm down to the Earth, he resembled a drunken chimpanzee. A gust pushed him upright. Cringing, he forced left again and fell to the pavement. It was an idiot thing to do, but he wanted the dry shelter that had to lie across the street. Sandy spotted a shutter. He clattered on it.

A fat red candle radiated a flicker. It trembled and went out before the shutter could slide fast. Then a cigarette lighter rasped and a middle-aged woman was looking at Sandy.

" I just got off the train, " Sandy said.

The woman nodded to a shadow, " Ingwa. " Then she spoke at Sandy," Kwai-kwai, lai-lai. "

The darkness was a drain on response.

" Everything is broken, including the phones, " the voice was Chinese, a male.

" You speak English? " Sandy asked. " There are a lot of people out there. " " They'll get a place for them. Don't worry. Have the lady's soup. "

Sandy had dried his glasses and sat on a stool to eat. The man across was city smart and wore a shirt and tie. His hairline receded into a black wave, back-combed, it glowed as if slightly oiled. His forehead was crowned with an inverted triangle of skin pressed into his brow. His eyes wore wrinkles, so he was forty-five, maybe older. His full, peaked lips were shaped exactly like a Kuanyin statuette -- both masculine and feminine in the same bite. Round jowls made him resemble a native Taiwanese bear more than any Chinese.

The Chinese man's puzzled smirk was an inevitable question, " Where are you going? "

" Hualien. "

" You're a tourist? "

" I have a friend to visit. I live in Taipei. "

" You work there? "

" Yes. "

" That's good. Are you a teacher? "

" No, I write instructions, for computers and things like that. "

" I studied in America ten years ago. "

Personality comes through nuances and conversation. A mouth looks like it needs a wedge driven into it, and sometimes the eye won't be lifted even by a pretty face.

The expectant Sandy mirrored the curious smile in the Taiwanese man's eyes. The oriental was a lure to the boy. Sandy seemed too young only because he was uncertain.

" May I ask your name? " Sandy pointed his words.

" I'm Mr. Wong. "

Came a queer, quiet smile connected to some deep idea in Wong's mind. He told Sandy his business was global trade, " I'm after the interests of people too busy to care for their own details. I sell finished products, mostly to the United States. I was going to Hualien to check on some stone carvings. Very expensive. I have to make sure it's all right before we send it overseas. "

The typhoon leapt again and air whistled and pressure pushed into their ears. Sandy quickly turned his head. His emotional gut was full of unbidden fear.

The woman spoke some words. Mr. Wong translated, " She asks Matsu, the sea goddess, to save us from the storm. May we find love and peace, she says. "

As they slept, the storm slumbered, too. The winds streamed away until sky and water were separated at last. Night quit day as the woman wrenched her shutters open. Sandy squinted at the homogeneous grey veil cutting off the mountaintops. Above the Pacific, as he approached the train station, weightless white clouds pursued the invisible winds of the storm.

When Sandy returned, Mr. Wong sat smoking outside the door.

" The trains aren't running today. "

" I'm going south. You can ride with me. "

Of course I can ride with you. Do I want to? wondered Sandy. Mr. Wong walked to an expensive German sportster, black and new.

Sandy felt exceptionally unattached to time's constraints. When we don't know ourselves, impassive chance can lead us anywhere away -- to freedom or ruin. He was going back to see a woman he had loved, but whom he barely knew.

Mr. Wong's car had chocolate leather seats. The ride gave Sandy a pleasant feeling of anonymity.

So he listened to Mr. Wong's stereo play popular Taiwanese music. It wasn't the sort of music that younger people listened to: it was as if Hawaii and Jamaica had met their match in a rhythmic tune laden with cha-cha-cha-ing Hammonds and melodic horns. Sandy smiled out the window as the maudlin singer clung to her consonants, a lingering tremolo behind gritted teeth, "M m m m m n n n n..."

Sandy imagined Mr. Wong's private world, a family man with wife and children growing up. But his guess wasn't accurate. Wong had no wife and did not want any kids. Looking for identity in a Taiwanese is no easy thing, since bachelors resemble the family men. How could the East's social homogeneity even occur to Westerner brought up on preconceptions of individual life?

Wong drove carefully because the road demanded all his attention. It wound along a corniche cut into a cliff high above the sea. He was thinking about how he needed to get someone like Sandy to do deals in America. But Sandy looked sloppy. He was dressed in shorts and his face was unshaven. His brown hair could have been combed, but wasn't. The boy had an idle look, like a conceit. Some Westerners had that air of knowing something no Chinese would ever figure out. The West had come to the East, but no eastern culture would ever hold sway over the West. The West was too confident of its superiority. Looking again, Wong felt that maybe the boy's dominant streak was really a vacant and unfocused quality.

They made it to Hualien by noon. Wong handed over a card, " I want to have dinner with you. When you come back to Taipei, call me Sandy. "

" I've no idea how long I'll stay here. "

" That's okay. Call me as soon as you can. We'll talk business. "

" Oh? I'm not in business, " and Sandy realized how stupid this sounded right after he said it.

" I have a job for you. Next month I can give you more information, " and the Taiwanese man nodded a nod that almost bowed.

Some thoughts are so very secret that we do not know what they mean, even as we hear them spoken in our own minds.

II. a hope of the heart

"Nature makes all. Of what we are made the mystic moment reveals only faint intimations. But to claim knowledge, to learn precisely the relation between an equation and its manifest expression in reality's construction forces us to question the idea of understanding. For to describe is not identical with the being expressed and innate within all things. Equations and theories are descriptive. They lag behind reality, trying to catch up. But to what purpose? The most brilliant scientist must admit that nature is a magic veil: removing one silk breeds two more below. The theory falls under reality's ineffable precedence..."

The alley led to nothing but a telephone box. Memory hooked him because a hawker was lamenting over his vegetables, " Buy me or watch me die! You need your greens, if he wants meat tonight. "

Love's peaceful beginning sets up the conflict of all history -- between its wishes and actual ends. Watchful, still Sandy turned to the memory, the ever-sensual murmur of her fragrant flesh. He let the salesman evoke her.

Making the phone call was as unavoidable as listening to the hawker cry.

Sandy wanted only the loving first day. Foolish boy! When love is new, the couple is openhearted, uninhibited by the miniscule intrusions of habit and fault. Ignoring all the personal differences between familiarity, fresh love forgets expectations and idiosyncrasy is attractive instead of cloying. Emotions are generous as love's infancy throws out all the cares of the whole world. Innocence is made energetically. Neither care nor embarrassment stops rapture.

Sandy recovered his place. Samantha Quai lay sleeping near the end of an undialed phone. He'd left her behind for school.

The stomach's purpose seems best, because satisfied hunger sedates the deepest spiritual misery. Not that Sandy was feeling miserable. But Taiwan's smiling folk -- pictures of modest sentiment, capable at least of natural expression when asked -- they were walking past him untouched. Why shouldn't he let them enter his heart? Life is renewed, losing mundane things to new sensations.

The neurosis of repetition catches deliberate wrong in the middle of missteps, labeling them promiscuously -- butterflies haplessly pinioned -- we hang up on how awkward our reactions are. Conscience always declines inversely in proportion to the accretions of guilt sullying it. The intellectual dishonesty Sandy wanted to submerge was only an inhibition made of trying to avoid some painful humiliation.

To nibble on a cherry or a cracker is still only to nibble. Sandy kept trying to see what love was, to himself and to her, before guilt and memory. Familiar things obstruct and reveal, like the tarnish on a bronze: the figure and contour forming the relief comes through, but the original hue cannot be discerned.

Running away lasts just a short while. Its blindness is crass and cripples like some demon disease, and its own, only sure cure. Now, his moods were as before he had come to the island. Stewing in dejection, vain sour nothings had made him impatient again. Annoyed, he had gone back to university, put his sparse coin into the broken vending machine only to be reminded how drab a scam the denial system really was. No steeper fool had been made for eons. Sandy's ongoing enlightenment suffered some small increase. He concluded that misbelief was the force underlying all his errors. Also, lies and mistaken ideas had created all the world's problems. How he wanted to be free, and be allowed to fit in, but there was no hope! He held himself away, afraid of their judgements, and preferred his own lonely resignation. The cold, untalented people at the university, everyday had said unkind things because they were so serious and resented his natural confidence and talent. At the same time, the kind ones were too quiet and passive and offered him no support in the end. He lived alone and didn't even have the heart left to chase the few crazy girls who would have had him willingly. University was like waiting to be discharged from a hospital after a long sickness.

Relaxing after lengthy tension, the first thing that Sandy noticed was that he'd never needed to pretend to self-confidence. So, he took to smiling winsomely at the world, and shyly, at himself.

About the Orient, he was too full of conclusions. The way he saw it, nobody ever bothered to mention that paradise sinks into rife undergrowth. Sandy's cynical conceit had to find something wrong, and he premised the insidious disorder he imagined all around him on the swampy nature. Somehow it had mastered the minds of men who had been wiser once, a long time ago. Society mirrored the wild jungle. Like that undergrowth, civilization cruelly knotted the island's limbs. Many were moving faster than ever before through the maze.

How the money grew steadily, rapidly, like ferns uncoiling. Meanwhile, the city had grown hideous beneath dank heat and carbon. A lush contrast of interior and carapace had evolved. The threshold of their doorways was the blinder upon the collective soul of Taiwan. The doorway into each home, dividing the closed family from irresponsible society, sanctified the illusion that all was well. The social goal remained proud and embraced money, as if wealth really was godhead.

The people could work so diligently. Laziness waited for the last exam. That idiotically fixed and pointlessly rote academia was a vista beyond which the locals would never quite see. Naively buying into American social forms, perhaps, was one slowly creeping exception to the local diseases.

Make a mess, make ten messes, but why bother cleaning them up? Some say the mess in Taiwan was made in a small circle trapped on the mainland before it was martially imported. Maybe the generalissimo himself had exemplified that motto, or maybe only the people's character -- their eyes put out by enforced meanness -- had defined the barbarous carelessness of a society with no need for conscience. The logic of selfishness is a circular reaction. Every man for himself is right, right? Besides, the society had long since bounced back up into the thin bubbly heights of televised glee.

Nothing was more convenient than the wedding of fascist stagnation to individual industry. Several citizens understood the lies and were less mesmerized by the passive dumb show maintaining the appearance of stability upon which the society founded all its injustices.

As for the original threshold of Chinese imagination. It's a mute point. That idyllic and ancient equilibrium was a civilization long lost to the tranquilization of Confucian rules. Maybe the climatic barbecue was as much psychology as one needed to explain the slack-ass corruption of the swindler class. Who could say for sure? Because tightwads never ask questions until after they've gone out to squander their riches together all at once.

Visions glowing with plangent foresight? Is that what Sandy wanted? Ha! Feeble hindsight was all he had come to expect. Since he was a natural coward, really an inhibited reactionary at heart, Sandy could barely begin to trust his own capacity for judgement. He suspected sentimentality was getting ready to play his victim, making believe nobody had ever lived life like this before. He felt himself too much the foregone conclusion, like some scene from a 19th century romance: nobody would ever understand Mr. Sandy Colfax immediately and personally. The warm privilege of a forgiving present tense belonged to his contemporaries and Sandy saw all his life's work passed by well before he had done it!

That's right, Sandy told himself. A family can consist of only one man living in lieu of the others he had divorced ten years ago. He grimaced at several garbage bags heaped in the alley. A pile of paper packages and empty beverage boxes lay all over.

Samantha waited alone for him. She wrote to say she was working and saving money, and that he'd be welcome if she returned to Taiwan.

" Come to me in summer, " she had written. " See the magic you made of my love. " Her enchantment would forgive all his pecuniary and trifling moods. Happy hope still enthralled her. Love wishes moments into eternity... Our weakness for affection is more comical than sad.

The eyes of recognition: would they read any trace of innocence? What fragile silence had she made of his memory? Sometimes, her letters were all self-pity and nostalgia, as if she wished for an ideal he didn't equal. But he doubted any acrimony would singe her expression today. She squirmed beneath a screwy need to revenge herself against his avarice for love.

Everyone was hungry. The eye of yesterday's typhoon stared at his soup, a placid disbelief that gazed over the insatiable rage of nature's whirling membrane. The periphery of things was content to study the aftermath, yes, yes. Once, he had felt that mighty fear of losing love so many suffer. Since, Sandy had disbanded the forces of desolation. The rude horse, he set free. Resignation and the way to new joy -- a single sigh -- as easy as a signature erases all plans.

Now, watered with her hope, everything smiled, even the little shops selling clocks, shoes and bolts of fabric opening from the alleys onto a nub of fast food noodles and fried chicken. Further up, at the corner, lay the market and exotic fruit, a gift.

The stairway was the same smell of dusty, wet concrete. He had forgotten that odor. Sandy climbed through the still heat. The steel bolt on the rooftop door squeaked again. The terrace was blinding white sun. Beyond, the Pacific glazed up. Sandy let the brilliant light shut his eyes. He felt the air play over his face. He touched the summer sun like molten honey on the hot enamel parapet.

Then silence came to him from behind. Samantha laid her fingers on the wet spot between his shoulders. How cool her fingers compared to the unblinking sun. Not a word fell between them. His lover folded a flower round his heart for hers. Her forehead touched on his shoulder. She kissed the back of his ear, a whisper, " All the time you were away, I touched you. "

Her heart on his back, Sandy slid in her arms to face her. His eyes were wet and grey.

" Eyes like the earth, " Samantha murmured.

" Eyes like chocolate, not so sweet chocolate, " he smiled to make her smile.

The useless world, so set against their imagination for love, was lost. Samantha felt deeply safe. Then she laughed, a glitch disturbing the smoothly primal seabed. Only her dream for love had brought him back to the sodden desert. The length of love's sweet mystery was Sandy's sublimely attenuated return.

Silently they grew naked on the terrace. Each button was a kiss, undone. She ran away inside when he clasped her rooty crotch.

" I'm not the door on a Toyota! " she taunted, laughing.

An electric fan stirred the air. Samantha was a giggle kneeling on the bed. Sandy crawled forward. She reached, then lay back, pulling his lips with hers.

Her quiet eyes shut the door on his runaway kiss, locking him inside a naked cage. Their tremor joined tongues to renascent nerves. Heart is prodigal flesh made of touch and ceaseless pulsation.

Samantha curled, slipping down. His forehead sank into her tummy as she nestled into his belly. Sandy arched his tongue into the soft cleft below. She swallowed his sex whole. Shifting her wet thews, Samantha set her lover's head free.

They lay into one another. Air from the electric fan coolly sheathed their lambent skin. They sensed flesh becoming tame and dry.

III. sex before love

" 'Some have suggested, and with a force of argument verging upon the disconcerting, that the dream world all humans and many animals nightly experience proves the extremely subjective nature of individual consciousness.

" 'So subjective does the play of involuntary mind appear to be, that it seems little can be gained if we compare it to waking, or wholly objective perception. Such a hasty breach ought to be forestalled when we look at how the waking stimuli of our raw percepts inform the subjective imagination.'

"This quote from a classic work on human psychology will help you to see the world I'm after, as it gets trapped between the vagaries of definition and the real qualities of consciousness attributed to the waking and sleeping mind. Trying to make a dichotomy between subject/object and dreaming/waking is not auspicious. In fact, our habit is to assume that perception is the same as objective capacity, but that is a mistake. Conscious subjectivity is often believed to be limited exclusively to the free play of imagination, and it is assumed that subjectivity has nothing to do for the strict analyses which applied rationality exercises. However, consciousness is built upon the imaginatively free play of our primary subjectivity and at once they precede and share interpenetration with our compulsive attempt to objectively qualify order in the world. The compulsion to master the world we observe and create with our perceptual intelligence has made all our art, philosophy and science. Yet, it would be stupid to pretend that the order with which we objectify is somehow an immanent form in nature that alone compels us to achieve intelligence through accumulated perceptions. Why? Our consciousness is a human form. But the world consists of truths and objects having an existence well beyond the knowledge with which we express our understanding of them. Knowledge cannot be objectively realized. Such absolute experience is not part of normal human capacity. Humans apprehend incomplete sensations and our understanding of reality is provisional, contingent and wishful. The frustration that longs to surmount this intellectual and spiritual limitation is responsible for inspiring the concept of a divine, encompassing subjectivity -- God, or enlightenment.

"Our occasional moments of omniscience and precognition seem to suggest that, truly, there is a larger harmony -- like a universal knowing subject who knows us and through whom, we know, too. Yet, we sense our consciousness is only a small part of that larger knowledge. The divine sense of humor sometimes matches our wits by reflecting our cynical disenchantment, and our happier optimism or good will. We are made of what we believe, and who can fail to see that our truths are made of belief, too? God only teases us with intimations of whole consciousness.

"The longing for absolutes has given civilization many elemental formulae -- the primal God of creation, the Tao, and the idea that Brahman is Atman. All these notions are essentially equidistant from the human wish for a pure ideal that moves the smallest heart, and would become the unity of our minds with purest truth... "

A baby's cry is the family's alarm clock. In the early morning, before light, the infant mouth drops open like a sharp cliff. A wail shatters sleep.

Samantha's baby was very hungry. One grasping vowel, " AAAAaaaa! " pierced every pore and the nerves in Sandy's bowels. Silent for half an instant, her tiny lungs puffed in a pocketful of air. Want is an autonomous concertina. Certain to get mama's response, the infant squeezed out one terse ejaculation after another.

" AAAaaa. AAAaaa... "

Samantha left the bed. Across the room, in the shadows, she knelt by a cradle, soothing swiftly, softly.

Sandy got up to open the blind. The dawn still waited to be seen. Samantha was holding her baby, kissing its face and tummy. Whispering love, she was a gentle memory for her own mother's words. Maybe Sandy had a voice like that inside himself, too. But he'd never conjured it.

When he didn't move for staring at the baby, Samantha handed it to him,

" Rock her, say something good. "

So delicate and mobile, its arms sprang back and forth in abrupt circles. Its head went to and fro. The baby saw Sandy's eyes and stopped moving.

Infancy is profoundly intelligent sometimes. The baby's eyes went to his heart, saying only, I know who you are. The girl's eyes were grey, like his. Amused fear made Sandy laugh. The child explained Samantha's cryptic, coy letters.

" What's your name? " the man asked of the baby's credulous eyes. He hugged the infant and felt her fatty flesh press softly on his chest.

" You're my baby, " he whispered. " You're so beautiful and look at your round wet lips. "

The infant's attention lapsed and she began to wriggle like four small fry. Catching his eye again, her fist fumbled into mouth.

" Baby girl. What does your mother want? To marry me now? I can't, " Sandy soothed his own hurt. " I didn't want a baby before, how can I now? I'm not a father. I can't support her. A baby needs something stable and certain. "

It felt dumb, less than annoying, like a mosquito bite panic, seeing how his own mind was blotted until the girl child appeared. He should have felt disgusted by his own peevish revulsion at responsibility and fatherhood. But Sandy was sure that he'd make a lousy father. How could he say that to Samantha? She'd laugh and wouldn't try to understand. She'd hate him.

The infant girl warmed to Sandy's cuddling. She grasped at the hairy curlicues on his chest, tugging and meekly tickling some peaceful yearning into Sandy's troubled head.

Samantha returned with the warm milk and Sandy asked, " What's her name? "

" Lynn. Lynn Colfax, when we get married. "

Together, in silent bower, the baby sanctified her mother's easy joy. Briefly, Sandy felt sublime, seeing Samantha's love so whole.

" How old is she? "

" A year and two weeks. "

He watched Samantha fasten the child's white disposable diapers.

" Why didn't you tell me about her in your letters. "

" I know you. "

" She's your magic gift. "

" I was afraid you wouldn't come if you knew. "

Samantha left her baby in the cradle and took away the empty formula bottle. The thoughts Samantha suspected in Sandy pursued her.

The ceiling was white plaster. He wished he could speak the positive confidences she needed to hear. Samantha felt a compulsive dread of losing her dream, and couldn't hear his refusal to marry. Her plight was his. Pity compelled responsibility for her. He didn't want it. He wouldn't pretend to duty, couldn't deceive her love with a humble show. Too many men have unwillingly sacrificed their freedom to a family. A man alone is liberated. But, to be happy, man and woman needed to live together.

He still owed himself plenty of scorn, because of his higher thoughts. What made up his own mind, and what made for genuine manhood? The subconscious had a part to play, too. Soon Samantha might see through her own miserable wish. Because Sandy wouldn't pretend he wanted to stay only to please her. If he tried faking it, she would begin to resent his deceit and then everything must end anyway.

Samantha reentered the room. Sandy had stretched out on the bed.

" Maybe you don't know me as well as I want you to, " Sandy pointed at the truth.

" What do you say? " she giggled.

Sandy spoke as Samantha sat on the bed. " I have to tell you how I feel. "

Samantha lay down on her side and curled up, all rump, hair and feet. " You always bring your mind with you. Can't you stop it? Sandy, I'll tell you I want you to help raise our child. You don't have to think about that. You love each other to do it. You don't have to plan. You just live. "

Sandy nodded at her, " Your wish comes true whenever your mouth opens. Why doesn't it matter what I want? "

" I'm waiting for you to grow up, and you're just full of buts, " whispered his woman.

" I don't mind you didn't tell me. "

" You're feeling sorry for me. Why don't you confess to having another woman again? "

" Forget that. I know you Taiwanese expect your men to be unfaithful so you can show them how angry you can get, and how much less you'll accept -- since you're only a woman. "

" Sandy, let's fight over one thing at a time. "

" That's it. You're smiling because fighting is like sex to you. You get excited. But true tenderness and love, Samantha -- they don't want to fight. "

" So I should shut up and go along? I know, you don't want me to show it when you hurt me. You're so rare. A truly honorable chicken. And I thought only Chinese men were cowards. Now I know for sure -- all men -- all men are! "

She was trying to laugh like it was funny, too. Mockery cut off his defense.

" Why can't you just say you're afraid I won't stay, Samantha? "

" You Western men use your minds to pretend you love. Where's your heart sleeping? Then your mind could change, too. "

" If I stay, you hope I will change. But what if I don't stay, because I can't? " Sandy insisted on honesty. " Will you blame me for being Western then? I'm only a man, a little bit broken by murky thoughts. Things are stupid. So am I. "

Samantha suppressed a melodramatic groan.

Sandy started again, " Fine. All you want me to do is lie. "

Samantha was in pain beneath his cruelty, and she said, " No. Why don't you want a family? It's not because you can't. "

" I won't do something I don't want. "

" What's that supposed to mean? "

" I only do things I enjoy doing, Samantha. "

" But you love me. "

" That's why I hate this. How can I lie? Acting like I wanted to be her father, we'd go nuts. "

" You're weird. Your daughter is there. You have to love her because she's yours! What does it take to be yourself? " Samantha peered at him from oblivion, scarcely angry and nearly pitying.

" I don't know, " Sandy felt a guilty smirk creep up, perhaps because she wasn't deeply hurt.

Sandy wondered who had more love during childhood, himself, or Samantha?

" You don't even know what you want, " Samantha spoke as if she was reaching a conclusion about him.

" Fine, I really have no idea why I don't want to be a father. "

" Are you afraid? "

" Do you know why you're good at something? No. You just do it. But I can't do what I don't want. "

" You said that a minute ago, Sandy. "

" So, I suffer from a genetic cultural disease. It's like xenophobia is certain to spread. I can't, therefore, I shan't. "

" Fuck your words, " Samantha prodded his reclining torso with a blunt toenail.

Since nothing more could possibly be hewn from talk, Sandy unfolded Samantha's limbs.

She opened her legs, eyes strangely near, knowing his love impossible. Inviolate honesty joined his mind to her heart. He stuck hard into her. His thrusts went smack, smack, smack as his pelvis and balls clapped her lovely wet bum.

Lust had outlived the desolation of their last angry goodbye. Now, it was a more deliberate passion, a renewal of touch, no longer so sincerely innocent.

Sandy and Samantha spent a week, then two, and finally a whole month negotiating with words and sex. Not saying things exactly the same way twice did not stop them from saying the same things over and over again.

She coddled and fondled his vanity.

" No way, " he answered.

It was an easy life for the fun Sandy got out of her. Samantha expected sex would make him marry. He shopped for her. He learned how to change diapers. But when she suggested that he get a teaching job, he shut up.

He played as if he couldn't decide what to do. That led the woman to expect the end. She saw him plainly limited, by phrases, a cast of mind so firmly and arbitrarily his own.

In bed, they were happy. Maybe sex is only the love of youth for making regrets. Heavy promises to make love last forever seem so silly to jaded experience.

Sandy watched the morning news. Then he read a book. Some Sundays

they bussed with the baby to the beach to share seafood. Everyday, late in the afternoon, Samantha rode her scooter to the children's school and taught for a few hours. Coming back home to her new family was precious peace.

But one Friday evening, near the beginning of September, Samantha came home to find the baby sleeping beside a handwritten note. Sandy's scratch said something about having to leave; though he still loved her deeply.

Samantha was to weep many days. If she stopped believing in her love for Sandy, then her daughter might turn out mean. She wanted her child to become a kind woman. She had plenty of ruthful ideas like that. So her prayers kept Sandy near her at home, in bed with her devotion to tender illusions.

To give up, and to hate him -- that would be the death of her heart.

VII. it's like this

It felt indescribably ordinary to Sandy -- signing the papers with the cylindrical wooden name chop. The bank clerk looked so impassive, as if Wong were only paying him a few thousand and not twenty-seven million New Taiwan dollars. The clerk went back to talk to his boss. Wong nodded at Sandy who could see the bank manager using the phone. The uneasiness he might have expected did not come. Instead, Sandy stared into one of the many surveillance cameras mounted on the bank ceiling.

Receiving the money was not a crime. Actually seeing the papers shuffling before his eyes displaced the unbelievable sensation he had had while walking into the bank. But he couldn't smile so easily as Wong, who explained to the bank manager that Sandy had saved his life in a boating accident and now was rewarding him.

The easy money disturbed Sandy's idle instincts: irrevocable certainty was too serious an emotion for him.

But that's why people feel fate is genuine. Maybe fate is another name for the unexpected as it becomes irreversible. Fate is only a fiction, an image of the mind in reconciliation with the lack of initiative for making a destiny all my own. When something changes us, the influence is called fate. Even if my soul does not conform to the identity of the changes made in me, I have to accept the new identity, or lose all faith in myself. Believing in fate may be a coy rebellion against the discomfort of becoming someone other than who I am. So, it's possible I've invented the idea of fate as I resign myself to do things I shouldn't. Then, there's no such thing as fate at all: fate is just as imaginary as the dimwit vanity of horoscopes, and the goofy psychological second-guess of a fortune-teller_

Sandy made a habit of turning his back on productive insights with distracting tangents, abstract proofs -- applying the geometry of a misplaced aim -- he was more worried about becoming certain than he would be able to admit a loss. He alone was responsible for making the choice and the courage behind the impulse to shake Wong's glad hand was really an inversion of Sandy's natural willpower.

So it is, in the nature of our wisdom and the meaning it sometimes gives to our lives, that we change our minds too late.

Inside the restaurant, a delicate and golden satin swelled upon panes of milky glass acid-etched with the stillest bird perched on the slightest of twigs. The robin appeared to look at them, and listen.

" Mr. Traditoria is our main contact, " explained Wong. " Remember, he works for his side of the business, not ours. He always makes the payments, in cash or checks. "

" Who is Traditoria, a syndicate? "

" Yeah, they run out of L. A. He has friends in Chicago and New York, even in Florida. But the south's not their turf. They control the northeast and west coast. He's the distributor, it's like large volume resale. Mostly Traditoria's street boys are blacks. We've got some white managers and Latino insiders. He doesn't have any South Americans. His guys in the east are mostly Italians and other ethnics -- Greeks, Ruskies, a few Armenians and Turks, and they've got Habs, Pakis and lots of black boy tools. Of course, they have some important financial connections -- Irish Americans, a few Polish and German Jewboys, just to help close the loose ends on top. "

" Sounds like a furniture chain. "

" It's a business, what do you think? We sell stuff nation-wide. "

" Do you have anything to do with those huge Asian gangs in L.A. and San Francisco? "

" Yeah, well, we do deal with them indirectly, but they're pretty small-time in America. We sell through Traditoria because we don't want a network of connections to develop beyond the steady pins he's got already. It's one man and one deal, that's all. You're the star and it's your show. "

" I only work with Traditoria? "

" Yeah. He's the only one who'll know your name, and aside from the moving men, you won't be known to anybody on the street. We make sure the street pins don't find out about us. We're the top. They take the heat for us. We make it stay like that. The secret's in keeping it. Never tell anyone what you're doing. Even when you meet Traditoria on a delivery -- he's a New York Italian -- keep quiet. He'll have his boys open the cargo. "

" You mean, every time I do the deal, I go it alone with the gang? "

" Right. That's exactly why I'm paying you so much. No one can steal the season from you. It's your show. I'm like a publisher. I'll make sure you're a big one among very few. Everyone buys the same name from us over and over again. They need your product. They can't get it unless we supply it. I guarantee nobody meets any competition. "

Wong putted his golf ball eyes into the wine bottle. He was satisfied, as if he'd birdied it, too. He sipped from the refreshed glass, peering over the rim at Sandy, waiting for a question.

" You control the entire North American supply? "

" Not exactly. We run deals with Traditoria, like I said. There're other Asians from Malaysia and Vietnam. But we're bigger. Traditoria definitely runs the West Coast. My partners are the most powerful in Asia. We destroy anyone who starts to grow. The small independents are mostly desperate, unknown but to other locals. The idiots get caught all the time. They're stupid and chicken-shit actually. They wait till your dead before they grow balls enough to call you a genius. Everyday they tell each other what to buy and what to ignore. Nobody has to think for themselves. Safer to follow behind forever. They're lost -- blind losers. Our business is better. We're really integrated. But I make sure each division only knows who its immediate associates are. That's our security. I call it top-down segmentation. So, only my supply partners and I know everything. "

" What about the bank? How do you explain the money to the tax office? "

" A front company. Of course, I do sell some tea, and I export lots of fictitious radios and electronic transistors and motherboards. "

" So I look like I'm working for a trading company, that's all? " Sandy kept staring at Wong.

" It's very easy. We only pay tax on a tiny fraction of what we actually make, so we appear to be just like any other trading company. We use a routine accountancy procedure. That means we regularly export our larger assets for shelter in Swiss banks. Of course, I have lots of my own money right here in Taiwan. "

" Is there a real office in Seattle? "

" Naturally. You can go to work at 9:00 and go home after 5:00. "

" But what if the FBI checks out the trading companies? How couldn't they see through it? "

" They won't investigate unless they have some suspicion. It's the same with the Drug Enforcement Agency. They don't know anything about us. "

" I go to the company office everyday, right? Okay, the phone rings and they want to buy radios? What do I do? "

" Go ahead and sell them. Because, don't you see? It's not a front at all. We are a legitimate international company. We do what I call, "white" and "black" business. I make 10% from white and 90% from black. You can attract new white markets if you want, but stay modest. You remain unknown. I don't want any magazine profiles about the hot new kid selling big for China, " Wong spoke directly at Sandy.

It was true. There was very little Sandy had to know. The little technical details, about existing client accounts, banking, managing the facade -- all that would come after they arrived in America.

By the time the conversation had begun to bore both men, and they were eating instead of talking, Wong's humor woke again.

" Did you go out last night, like I suggested? "

" I was too tired. "

" That's too bad. You missed some really special women down in the hotel bar."

" I need my head sober, don't you think? "

" Of course, but pleasure makes life's powers seem so small. "

" I do need some perspective, yeah. Maybe I'll go out tonight. "

VIII. beyond the pecking of six legs

Time jumps. It hops and skips. It runs away from us. Nobody ever sees it flow.

A point is passed. Voices cease. Everything has been spoken. The slightest breeze sweeps new words away. Leaves no longer gleam in lively chorus upon the branches. A feeling of futility pursues life after glory. Nobody can speak of it.

The desire of dreams says that one may excel as never before. But the heart often knows when the mind's speech isn't up to the job. Comparing truth to illusion seems vulgar and stupid, especially as the mind tries so desperately to lead the voice, but cannot reveal anything new...

Then, the artist may feel suddenly limited and irredeemably humiliated: art is nothing eternal, but some cheating snatch against a placid truth which came well before and survives long after creative action.

It's a fact -- the finest poets retire or die young. Briefly, like a love affair, inspiration frees the mind from solitary experience. In the end, the truth is often as repulsive as it is beautiful.

A happy childhood brings youth to face the dim world brightly. Glorious sensitivity blinds the modern mind. Preoccupied with dreams, the artist cannot see the narrow predetermination of the dim, functionally neutral world. He may catch a glimpse of that deadly social reality, but he can't believe people do not live as he wants them to -- free of cynicism, imaginative, joyful.

So the artist's first sight is always a misapprehension. He doesn't see anything except the world in his own mind. The artist comes to subjugate life instead of living it. Then he makes very predictable mistakes. He asks, " Does God really exist? " instead of, " What is God? "

Youth builds only to abandon, finally giving up what we set out to do. Overcome by confusion and forgetfulness, the artist concludes at last that the world is dull rather than vibrantly alive. Each instant could have been a unique opening. Instead, he moves into a prison cell on behalf of someone else's self-imposed limitations. Then he no longer says anything worth listening to, because his utter blindness is so self-persuading. He believes nothing will save him from the real world...

" Can't you see it? " he asks himself again, as if speaking to a large audience of informed cynics.

He lets imagination alone, quits art and philosophy to travel. He prays the Orient is a place well beyond his understanding. In all humility and squelched anguish, he's given up, convinced that silence must fall on his heart.

Sometimes you see a friend whom you left behind on the path ahead. At first, you don't see that he simply took a shorter route. Often, it is hard to guess the obvious without a hint.

It took a month and six big lies to arrive anonymously in America. He went alone. Teresa stayed behind to play along with Wong until she could stage her own getaway. Sandy was busy learning how to do something. The moment joining crisis with idyll is erased.

Familiarities come first. Tongues were full of well-known phrases and the laughably fat people waddled about everywhere. In America again, Sandy felt suddenly smaller than things as the spaces between them grew larger. The Seattle air was much cooler, and didn't press him down like Taipei's summer. Trees were all around. In Taipei, few living things, besides people and dogs, had been visible. Habits and customs are plain to the returning exile: people are characters instead of strangers.

He donned the blue coat with silver buttons. The smart, suave efficiency of a man behaving like a businessman was a novel feeling. He had begun to move more quickly now -- focused on the future -- scheming, learning how to make the fortune. Saving his skin was the same thing as saving money.

Nobody could know him in Seattle. Sandy spoke English.

Wong's hotel room was next door to Sandy's. Each morning they ate breakfast together. They visited the office and shopped for a condo. They went out to movies and bars.

Sandy wondered what it was about human personality. A grim vital passion came from Wong, the Taiwanese. Sometimes he wore a mask of clever language as if he were made entirely of persuasive arguments. Wong willed calm over his depths and contentment hid the blood fueling his rage. He didn't tell Sandy any stories about what it took, either. Wong showed his power only as he explained how he kept control by making sure nothing would change. Stability was holy to Wong, a reason for the self-possession with which he justified the system's brutal force.

August was over.

Once, it occurred to Sandy that Wong was like a military dictator. That feeling was like sensing a slight earth tremor, while sitting with Wong in the hotel room, watching an American football game. Then he saw Wong -- wild, existing only to drive an instinct for power. Perhaps this greed was part of all men. It was Wong's vitality.

Power is a lust all its own. Yet, power is more than the sense of having it. Attaining absolute power is a rare experience. What caused that compulsion for control? How could anyone "need" power? Wanting to dominate was a perverse compensation for insecurity, lack of love or misplaced dreams. Wishing for power always looks like murder.

Getting power really had made Wong hard. Wong gripped deadly intent, ready to kill even as he appeared calm and patient.

The football game was in its closing minutes. Wong lay back. Some pillows and a quilt propped him. Might as well have been guilt and pills. Wong resembled a sea lion relaxing after a feed. But his face was a tense little smile, as if expecting something unlikely. His Miami Dolphins lagged by a touchdown and a conversion. The snail-voiced commentator spoke of last-minute gambles and a likely team sale. Wong poured beer into his throat.

Sandy sat on an armchair, reading the instruction manual to a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. A faint gloss of black iron, the pistol's deadliness condensed into such a small, scary mass. Wong had given it to him the day before.

Football bored Sandy. So did the instruction manual. He didn't want to own a gun.

A noise of liquid tin striking glass startled Sandy. Wong fell on his knees before the screen. Foamy beer ran down the glass. Through the alcohol, magnified pixels looked like reptilian skin, sloughing off.

Wong's hands were balls pummeling the carpet like a drum. He yelled some virile Taiwanese curses at the losing Dolphins.

Wong crawled onto the bed and grabbed for a pillow. The pillow was the Dolphins' coach. Wong gripped the fabric like it was a man's face. His thumbs pushed into a pair of downy eye sockets. A gurgle growled from his stretched lips.

Traditoria had a hideaway by the sea. Sandy didn't know him yet.

" It's all right to ask questions, " said Wong. " But don't talk about the other connections he has. We're here to sell him our stuff. That's all we ever talk about. He needs to know when to visit our warehouse and what kind of money's coming in. The other people in his show mean nothing to us. If he has any problems, he'll tell us about it. "

" Have you ever met the South Americans? "

" We had a dealer's convention once. "

" Where? "

" Hawaii. We made it look like we were all on local tour packages and then met in the middle. "

" What were they like? "

" No time-wasting. Very generous, proud of their empire. They've improved their peoples' lives at home, achieved something nobody else could have done. "

" What about all the killing in Columbia? "

" The bosses aren't doing it themselves. "

The car dove right down into a lane. In the fast falling pit of his belly, he wished himself outside, free and poor again. Enormous pines, ferns and cedars enclosed the way in. The road swept round and the open sea drew the trees aside to show a stylish new mansion made of red-hued wood.

Traditoria stood waiting in the doorway. His was black curly hair, close-cropped. He had a moustache over a serious, mouth. But his eyes were outlined with gentle wide oval lids, making his mien seem warm and reassuring. He watched them emerge from a pitch shadow.

They went inside, after his silence. Sandy had a vision of someone too emaciated to control his unimportant limbs. But Traditoria was merely tall, and his pants, narrow.

As he offered Sandy a glass of spirits, the man peered into him.

Sandy fought the other's concentration yet drank his smile into the mirror of his own face. Wong broke the quiet crystal silencing the two strangers.

" Sandy Colfax is our new agent. "

" My name is Freddy Traditoria. Not to be confused with the mutinous pizzerias my uncle owns in Napoli. "

This punning allusion blazed over Sandy's head. He was helpless.

" So Sandy, I'm sure you'll be happy working with us. "

" I don't know if happy is exactly the right word, Mr. Traditoria. "

" A man honest about how he feels is one who knows what he's doing, " nodded Traditoria as he sat on the massy black leather sofa.

" But could anyone really like this job. Do you? "

Traditoria quipped, " The world would seem unnatural, and remain dull, but for the chances we take. You have a good teacher in Mr. Wong. "

" Yes, I do, " Sandy was sober. " But I don't see what I'm getting into. I'm too ignorant to be afraid. "

As Traditoria tipped his head slightly, Wong laughed one of those politely fake laughs the Chinese use when they don't know what to make of someone, or they don't like him. Maybe Wong only wanted to show he was privy to Sandy's aims.

The men waited for him to thaw and relax into a chair.

Wong spoke, " At least you believe that we trust one another. To operate cleanly, nobody can discover us. We have to keep our heads. Traditoria always likes to say, 'Be cool.' Only betrayal can disrupt us. You know that betrayal is death. "

" That's right, " Traditoria grinned across the grey. " Stay with us and you'll never have to go back and live with your parents again. "

The son of a dago laughed, as if having no choice was the funniest thing since the invention of butter.

Money was all they were. Despite the crooked shadow they cast across his path, Sandy had to ask some questions, " How do you schedule dates and places? How do we communicate? "

Wong shook his head at Traditoria, " You can see I told him very little because I knew you should meet him first. "

Sandy was an animal sensing a predator. He stayed very still and small, watching as Wong primed Traditoria with a chance to flex his power.

" He knows nothing, " Wong added. " Tell him however much you like, or just as little. "

" We have to show him what's up. Tonight my cash goes on the table, an hour after sunset as usual. It'll be good practice. "

" Yeah, I think showing me is the only way, " Sandy did an agreeable imitation of a ventriloquist's dummy.

" Good. You're not all stupid questions. Remember this, Sandy, " Traditoria bound his fingers together on his lap. " We're an establishment. Our monopoly is easy, but only so long as we keep our secrets and forbid competitors. We're a necessary market, like a paper supplier, an automaker, a food wholesaler. We're like the Catholic Church. Or, the gold market. What we sell is something people need to live. They'll want to buy it even when they can't find it. "

Traditoria melted holes in the boy's ice. But Traditoria wouldn't really be able to sell him on any idea. He could only sit on Sandy and say what was what.

Sandy had always imagined that the circularity of a business was arranged simple mathematical calculations. That sort of algebra inspires a purely conservative rationality.

" We're efficient, " Traditoria unfolded his plan like a card table. " In other words, we value reliability as much as we do plain trust. You do your part exactly on schedule, and you communicate according to the system and its back-ups. If you are sure the police are on to you, let us know and then go where we say. If the police catch you, be quiet or make up fishing stories. We don't care if you're proud of what you do. We only want you to work well. That's it. "

Sandy was uneasy, " What if things go wrong and you can't stop them getting me? Won't you murder me to keep things secret? "

" We don't want to get rid of people Sandy. You're crucial for us. You are irreplaceable, " Traditoria leaned into his sincerity. A hand on Sandy's fearful knee warmed up the bad actor's words, " If you trust us, I can ask for nothing more. You work and you're rewarded. "

" I can't see how a drug network could be so direct and just use shipping agents. I always imagine fishing boats at dawn, and light aircraft in out of the way places. "

" We're too big for that nonsense, " Traditoria was almost wincing at Sandy's green tone. " We're like Coca-Cola. "

The ensuing pause was more brief than it would have been had Wong not gone to visit the restroom, actually the diplomatic peak of the afternoon.

" You know our product originates in Thailand and Burma. Did Wong ever say why they ship the stuff through Taiwan? " Traditoria asked Sandy.

" No. "

" You should be able to guess why. "

" Nobody expects anyone would use Taiwan as a junction. "

" That's right, you're onto it. "

" The drugs lose their trail in Taiwan? "

" Yes, but why do they? "

" I don't know. "

" Repackaging. That's all, Sandy. The drugs are lost in so much freight. "

" Why doesn't Wong get caught? "

" You should ask him why our Thai connection doesn't. "

" I won't know about that either? "

" When I say we are a big business, I mean it. We cover all angles. We buy out the cops, the government inspectors, whoever we have to. We always have someone to warn us. Nobody's going to stop a profitable business when they can get by with a little fish show trial once in awhile. "

" You're saying the system is almost foolproof. Except, here in America, nothing is safe? We can get caught. "

" You think I haven't got any pull where it counts? " Traditoria sat back. " Then I hope your concern adds to your caution. "

" How do you protect yourself from the lower ranks? "

" We stay away from them. They just don't know anything about us. "

" But how couldn't they? "

" We use agents. They're like travelling salesmen distributing stuff to a regional distribution net. The net is a group of gangs, and many of them don't even know anything about each other. None of them know who we really are. Nobody will ever find out who you are Sandy -- never ever. "

" But how do you move the stuff around the country? "

" Our agents drive it. Sometimes we use a regular shipping company. They don't know. We park the thing and unload it to buyers. Ever see a fish truck? That's it. "

Wong came back into the room.

" What are you talking about? " he asked.

" The distribution system, " answered Traditoria. " It's the safest thing we have. I'll be straight with you. The most dangerous thing is visiting customs every month. They won't dig deep enough because we pay them off. "

" But if 'Mr. Smith' retires suddenly, we could be in for fast talking. "

" That's right. Our only precaution is to bury the goods deep in the containers. Sniffers can't detect it, and customs won't take apart our load unless the DEA moves in. The fact is, they just don't have time to get suspicious. "

Traditoria loved explaining things, it was an excuse for calling off the usual silence his role imposed.

" But isn't your cargo ever spot-checked by someone who doesn't know what's going on? They must do that sometimes. "

" Yeah they do, but the honcho on the dock makes sure they don't look in the right places, " Traditoria chuckled. " You sure do want to learn everything, don't you? I like a serious front. "

Traditoria reached for a photo album on the coffee table. Giving it to Sandy, he whispered, " Our business is deadly, Mr. Colfax. "

He left the room with the elder Wong, saying, " You only have to follow the rules. They're easy as making scrambled eggs. "

The first page was a list of names and phone numbers: UK roots, and Italian, Middle Eastern, a few Chinese, East European and some Thai and Burmese. Then a few pages showed some blue piggyback containers. Young men, mostly black, were unloading cartons. The next page showed photos of businesses labeled: FBI / DEA Fronts. Then some pictures of a cocktail party. Mugs of richly attired couples and more labels: Betty and Bob, Rico and Marisa, Angelo and Martine. The party must have been in Miami. The couples smiled knowingly, eagerly showing their neat teeth. The final page upset Sandy with a flesh pang and he wanted to run away. Ugly photos -- dead men laid on cement, bloody around the head. The page was labeled: Pigs, Snitches and Blackmailers.

Murderers. It would take nothing -- a mistake, a betrayal, or someone's malice -- and his life would be lost. He was their tool now, and a knife doesn't need to be reassured, only sharpened. Monster Wong's words were like the bedside manner of an experienced doctor, deceitfully merciful, talking to a terminal patient. But the pictures made that civil glaze seem brittle and fake: beneath the aplomb and flamboyant manner lived a shitty, nauseatingly cruel bastard.

Traditoria was a killer and he wanted Sandy to dread him. The gang-boss would trust without sincerely trusting. Sandy itched to ask what chance he would have, or how the gang would try to help him if something went wrong that wasn't his own fault. But he closed the album. Showing cowardice to a man like Traditoria was less foolish than any attempt at savvy. Sandy went out to find a bathroom.

Outside, Wong stood by to Traditoria, searching the blue night for the moon beneath the waves.

" I don't think you made a good choice, " Traditoria's words were spoken as if Wong was waiting to hear them.

" Why not? "

" He has too many questions. He should do the job he's got, that's all. "

" But he has no experience, what do you expect? "

" It's too risky using innocents for key jobs. "

" But effective. Sandy's so clean, he's a boy. No record, above suspicion. We've got to use a guy like him, " Wong was confident.

" He'll be scared, never trust us enough. What if he feels more trapped everyday? Maybe, he'll go crazy and think we plan to kill him. "

" Well, we could let him retire. After a few years. "

" We could, yes, " Traditoria agreed.

Wong rooted into his own muck, " But you won't want to chance that, especially if he works out. I found Sandy. You just check with me before you think you know it all, okay? Why assume the worst? Wait a little while. When he feels trapped, he'll obey. I think he's too smart to try anything on us. "

" Why wouldn't he Wong? "

" I'll make sure he doesn't. He needs to feel like he has a future. He told me about not having any plans, how he flunked out of university. "

" Great. A sore loser nursed on sour grapes isn't our best man. I'd've found some little salesman, you know, one of those goofy P. R. types. What we need is a jock'oholic who doesn't have nothing to care about. Sandy looks too cool. But he isn't. I know these guys. They stay in school a long, long time before they lose. Looks to me like he's thinking all the time. He acts like he knows what he's doing because he doesn't see what he really wants. "

" Freddy, this boy is completely unconnected. He's the perfect nothing. Nobody remembers him from anywhere to suspect him of anything! Taking a real man away from another job attracts attention. Sandy's a social blind spot. Can't be spoken for. "

" That's not it. It's his goddamn character. He's like a mouse in a fucking jar! "

" I'm paying him a million dollars. "

" No wonder, " Traditoria rolled up the whites of his eyes. " That's way way too much. "

" But we need him, " Wong was firm.

" I know. "

" All you have to do is watch him Freddy. Give it a chance. "

" I hate not having my say, Wong. "

" When do we ever have any choices in this business? "

XXV. racing need

His organ is a blind monkey grinding the peppercorn on its nose. But she grabs the animal around its chest and stabs herself. She laugh gasps a growling breath. Vexed desire shatters and joy engulfs the big thing entering her small place.

Sex friction is the whole world, a length of glans and labia. She won't let it run away from her polishing block.

Delight spurs frustration away. Teresa really wants him. Again, the discovery is a physical understanding. Flesh is poised above the threshold of satisfaction, disturbing patience even as the eternal arrives. Tension explodes and pleasure drains into the bottom of a sloppy, wet drumbeat.

Teresa lines up to take his thrust. Sandy, on his forearms, presses his bone into hers. He grinds and she lives in a tuft of fluid fur. Clit touches the foot of his leaning tower like a drowning man comes home to kiss the earth. Her foamy hair is a wreath. Lust is a wave. It peaks to point her body and mind into his.

She rolls him over. She is like the moon reeling in the high tide. Together they make a natural law. How his heart may break against her pitiless pubic bone, because she loves him so. She strikes her pearl against the next shimmy. Her pelvis is faceted, a masked socket, like a tripod braced across the clods of earthly repression.

Her vagina is round and keeps him straight. Sometimes the pivot collapses over her clutching peak. The woman's nerve is scratched raw. She tortures herself, unraveling her lover's heart only to hear him sigh. She owns him for the pleasure he owes her. Engorged, she presses again. In she slips him.

By gasp and grasp, whispered words, the woman's slapping slit, are a scourge to his full stop. Numb and super-sensitive, the woman breathes forbidden ideas into his ear as she turns on the diamond. The miniature nerve cuts a dance around the red forest floor. Then her spring overflows and she lusts the good feel for coming home.

He lifts his pelvis. She stretches open a leap year of water, suspending her orgasm on his chain. She falls twirling, like a wet lump of satiated mud.

Again and again she lifts her chest to treasure the sweetly sudden collapse upon his.

His pump pulses beneath balls and scrotum. Still breathing, she falls into her orgasm as she screams, " I need you Sandy, I need you! "

Nerves smash into ecstasy.

A few seconds dwindle away. Then he laughs over the still silence following their orgasm.

She wonders, " Why are you laughing? "

" Because it feels so good. "

Copyright © 1999 by David Antoniuk