Goodbye Wordpress, bastards. Lousy software over there just cost me five hour of writing lost to a crash. I'm moving my film reviews here.

Aping the past: “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”

It’s been four years since “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” director Matt Reeves last cinematic outing, “Let Me In” — an English-language remake of Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s vampiric coming-of-age film. While there will always be film aficionados who insist the original take of a film presents its truest form, I felt Reeves’ reboot wrought a more kinetic, more universal telling of the tale and that Reeves had created an instant classic of the horror genre. My respect for “Let Me In” was immense. Over the decades, Reeves has paid his dues in Hollywood and his career has veered from comedy (“The Pallbearer,” an early and soon-to-be infrequent outing by “Friends” star David Schwimmer) to helming one of the first features to bring the now largely defunct “shaky-cam” (thank goodness) effect to big screen — his clever, if Dramamine-required, alien-invasion film “Cloverfield.” Capable of delivering both drama with sensitivity and visceral shock, Reeves seemed an excellent choice for this latest installment of the “Planet of the Apes” saga. Unfortunately the material he’s been given to work with isn’t of the same quality as Alfredson’s wholly original horror concept or enough of a pure action-fest like “Cloverfield” to let one overlook the general mundanity of “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'” story. How possibly mundane can a planet of talking apes be? Aside from the fact that these simians have now been performing their grunt-speak to audiences for over fifty years (Maurice Evans’ buttery, upper-class mannerisms notwithstanding — what planet was he from?), that novelty remains fairly fresh. But it’s “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'” screenplay that comes across as flimsy as Linda Harrison-as-Nova’s” deliciously hung rags. If one were to take away the apes as players (which would be a waste as they are miraculously rendered CGI creations), stripped of tooth and fang, “Apes” would be left with all-too-human and all-too-cliched story. The film revolves around the “stop the madness” efforts of a good-hearted human survivor of the simian-virus apocalypse and the now imperially seated Ceasar of 2012’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” These two suffer fools, villains and rebellious children as they toil haplessly to bring peace to opposite ends of an inter-species battlefield. The CGI action is exciting, but the behind-the-scenes powerplays of their shared struggle — however novel on the Darwin spectrum — feels too familiarly packaged. The screenplay, credited to Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Sliver, makes the writers sound less like science fiction visionaries than a preachy team behind a Vietnam-era anti-war film. There’s a decidedly “retro” feel to the futuristic war film, with the camouflage-clad ghosts of Audie Murphy and Dennis Hopper lingering somewhere just out of sight.  The story trudges along dredging up far too many plot points from Shakespearean-aspired royal dramas; I’d recite the litany of cliches but I don’t want to spoiler-ize anyone’s fun. Gary Olman, who once shone in the sun as a lean, English mad dog, now seems comfortably settled into playing roles of the flustered heavy (and I still think he applies the same touch to his American accent.) He’s ostensibly the leader of one of the last tribes of humans, but his nervous fidgeting makes it difficult to believe he would be put in charge of much more than a AA meeting. The cast of largely unknown actors doesn’t help either. Though capable, they never bring any real fire to the screen, although lead Jason Clarke works tirelessly at his angst. Unfortunately, the human cast is frequently emotionally upstaged by computer-generated apes, that in itself a scary accomplishment which may, indeed, portend the fall of mankind.  Or at least the Actor Guild of America. On the other hand, I never know exactly what praise to lavish on human-marionette, actor Andy Serkis. Certainly dancing around in leotards glued with styrofoam balls for the roving eye of a computer to map can’t be easy, but the question is how deep does one’s Stanislavsky have to run? But the film’s real problem is its script, and its by-the-numbers roll call of devices. Without the apes, I imagine the plethora of well-intentioned, but tired war movie cliches would have “Apes” garnering far less praise than it is receiving. And those hokey-ending lines gravely spoken by the defeated peace-makers … Where have I heard them before? “I thought we had a chance,” says Clarke. “So did I, my friend…so did I,” intones the moribund chimp. It’s almost a pity that all the battling that has come before falls into a pile with those oh-so heavy lines, which ring as outdated as a throw-away bit of hippy schtick from “Easy Rider.”  Of course, the action fans may not notice these overwrought grarnishes, as they have been rewarded earlier to a fiery finale of two foes battling it out, swinging on an exploding skyscraper, as the inevitable flames lick at their feet, er, paws. While “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” will certainly please the action crowd with the most technologically advanced simian set pieces yet, it’s ultimately a pretty routine and not terribly clever affair. Invoking the film’s catchphrase, “Ape not kill Ape,” I would proffer, “Ape not make Sequel.” Though I’m sure “the heavies” will triumph again, man.

Face fears and crossing boundaries: Takashi Miike’s “Audition”

As a medium which can present an emotional assault with few rivals in the arts, there are some films which even the most jaded film viewer approaches with some trepidation and, yes, even fear. When I was just beginning to delve deeper into the cinema in my teens by reading every film book I could lay my hands on, just the passing references to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” were enough to have me avoid it during my impressionable youth and, in fact, well beyond. That film still repels many just a year shy of its 40th anniversary (I’m wondering what company will be brave enough to issue a celebratory Blu-ray 3D edition), although I made my peace with that bit of brutal cinema a few years ago. Does it present an affront to a viewer? Of course. But it also challenges one’s conceptions of morality and today I am staunch defender of Pasolini’s film for its artistic merit … despite a hesitancy to revisit its dark metaphorical charms with any real frequency. There will probably always be films inviting debate for exceeding the boundaries of taste, but that’s certainly nothing new. I’m reminded of a passage in Hemingway’s  “A Moveable Feast,” where he visits Gertrude Stein at her literary salon. Giving her critique of Hemingway’s stort story “Up in Michigan,” a tale of date rape, Stein calls the story inaccrochable, which in the context of a work of art, translates roughly as one likely to go unexhibited or unsold due to tastelessness or sexual content. The modern cinema long ago dispelled this outmoded demureness, as works of explicit sexuality and inaccrochable material have proven to sell very well, indeed. But Stein’s defining of art’s boundaries is still valid when it comes to the extremes of taste, although the dogmatic application of such standards can also breed preconceptions that can steer us away from movies that make us think, solely based on what they may make us queasily experience. Such is the case with “Audition,” an undeniably gory film by Japanese director Takashi Miike, a film I’ve managed to put off for more a decade. But having recently finished Irish director/film critic Mark Cousins’ breathtaking documentary series outlining of the history of cinema, “The Story of Film: An Odyssey,” Cousins’ praise for Miike quelled my apprehensions, begging me to finally watch “Audition.” Miike has become something of the auteur of graphically extreme social commentary in his native Japan. Even so, he remains a cult figure whose movies probably generate more academic debate than gross receipts. Any release of his movies in North America would probably require an NC-17 rating, or worse, a hackneyed edit of the scenes deemed most offensive, emasculating it of its message. Which is a pity, because as hard as it is to watch all the way through, “Audition” is a courageously insightful film that earns every drop of its viscera, and whose underlying political message is — or at least should be — much more disturbing than its over-celebrated bloodletting. The first half of “Audition” plays much like the dramas of other Japanese directors, with a ploddingly thoughtful introduction to a broken family. Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) loses his wife to an illness in the first scene, with the dying wife on the bed intercut with shots of her young son walking up the corridor bearing a hand-made gift for her. This melodrama is followed by a jump to seven years later, when the son (Tetsu Sawaki) is now a lively teen who tells his father that he looks old and should consider remarriage. Together with his film producer friend Yasuhisa (Jun Kinimura), Aoyama contrives an audition for a fake film project so that he can overview a few dozen young women for dating purposes. From the ensuing parade of young ambitious actresses, Aoyama selects the mysterious Asami (Eihi Shiina), a shy former ballet dancer whose resume essay intrigues Aoyama with descriptions of mourning and loss that mirror his own. Their courtship is touching, slow, and full of genuine moments, with the two trading bits of information and slowly allowing access to each other’s interior. Aoyama is nevertheless the aggressor, being the older one and the instigator, as well as the male. But his deepening desire for Asami and craving for entry into her life is sincere, which makes the radical gear-shift of the last act of Audition all the more unsettling. Aoyama is our sympathetic protagonist, an aging widower looking for love, and thus not the expected subject of the kind of horrible vengeance Asami finally wreaks upon him. It is this seemingly unjustified twist that reeks of sadism to many, who dismiss “Audition” as an incredibly gratuitous ruination of what was amounting to a very sweet film about lonely people seeking a second chance. But it’s this twist that is exactly Miike’s point about the true disorder of Japanese society. The problem is not beautiful, seemingly nice girls who turn out to be medically-trained sadists, but the normal sexualization of Japanese women by men who don’t think of themselves as abusive or hateful. Miike’s trick is to first show us a movie world in which we think we know the rules. Aoyama’s loneliness is not especially selfish, and his occasional guilt over the memory of his deceased wife provides touchstones to his humanity. The audition is a fraud, but Aoyama himself thinks so too. He isn’t trying to exploit the women, just find a compatible one. In parallel, the audience is drawn into the game as well, delighting in the voyeuristic pleasure of watching 30 pretty Japanese girls preen and prance and occasionally strip for us. The other women in Aoyama’s life aren’t victims either — his subordinate who announces her impending marriage, his housekeeper, and the teenage girl who studies biology with his son all pass through Aoyama’s life like unimportant minor characters. He’s only interested in Asami, more so when she disappears on him, leading him to an investigation of her past that begins to reveal a dark side with implications of murder.The deeper Aoyama gets into his search for Asami, the more his life and mind begin to unravel, concurrent with the unraveling of our own understanding of what kind of movie we are watching. Although “Audition” drops several early hints that Asami is not what she appears, we are still unprepared for the descent into dream logic that Miike takes us on. “Audition” liberally mixes and matches sections of dialogue and scenery, placing dream sequences within dream sequences, and jumps back and forth between time, space, and realities. But it’s not a random pastiche — rather, it mirrors the collapse of Aoyama’s sheltered world, and more importantly accumulates into an unexpected indictment of Aoyama’s (and our) entire sexual existence. In one long hallucinatory sequence, he engages in terrifying oral sex with every woman in the movie in turn, unleashing his subconscious guilt into a conscious crime. Aoyama is not a bad person, and neither are we, and in mutating the comfort of our own middlebrow sexual ideas into a list of indictments that warrant torturous punishment, Miike accomplishes something revolutionary, or at least way overdue. Its insight, as well as the likelihood of its miscomprehension by most audiences, is reminiscent of Remy Belvaux’s 1992 fake-documentary masterpiece “Man Bites Dog.” Following a charming serial killer with a camera crew, Belvaux casualizes and humorizes his protagonist’s multiple homicides until we forget that it’s murder — something which most mainstream entertainment does as well. Bit by bit the camera crew becomes involved in the killings, as does the audience by extension, climaxing in the drunken butchering and rape of a pregnant women whose fetus is eviscerated. It’s this scene which delivers Belvaux’s hidden message that murder is horror, and we are horrible for having enjoyed any of it. Not coincidentally it’s also this scene that had to be edited out for release in most markets, reducing “Man Bites Dog” to a mockumentary about a serial killer who eventually gets killed by another serial killer and sparing us the discomfort of facing our own appalling appetite for violence as entertainment. “Audition” uses very different but equally disciplined method to deliver a similar message about sex. Asami represents the very essence of mainstream desirability — young, lithe, opaque yet sweet — what Yasuhisa describes as “beautiful, classy, and obedient.” Even when she turns into a nightmare sadist she’s still sexy, a calm philosopher whose face never breaks from its angelic expression even as she executes a piano-wire amputation. Even when we see what she has reduced a former victim to — and believe me, it’s awful — Asami never descends into monstrosity. Miike never lets us off the hook because Asami never stops being what we still desire. True, she’s a victim as well, but it’s not something that we haven’t seen before (another indictment of society), whereas her response to it is, by contrast, an incomprehensible extreme. The juxtaposition of Asami’s possible normalcy and concurrent serenity of action, along with Aoyama’s lack of having done anything society considers wrong, is what makes “Audition” so powerful. Its violence is not that much worse than what Denzel Washington does to his victims in the mainstream “Man on Fire,” in which he chops off body parts to our applause, because those who bleed are child abductors. Asami’s torture of Aoyama is unacceptable to the mainstream because Aoyama is us. Whereas “Man on Fire” panders to our righteousness by inflicting atrocities on bad guys, “Audition” upsets it by suggesting powerfully that the essential relationship between men and women is itself a slow act of permitted violence. Whether or not you think this is true doesn’t diminish the thematic uniqueness and cinematic courage of “Audition” or the tragedy of a great film being avoided by most people because it’s filed under the unspeakable or inaccrochable , or withheld from even more because it dares to ask what is truly horrible.

"A Matter of Degrees" a novel excerpt. I began this at USC and gave up fiction for the lucrative career of screenwriting which was going to quickly pay off my student loans. Let's just say, with only $120,000 still unpaid, it didn't quite pan out. (Note to readers: this is a rescued unedited text, so beware of typos and strange Greek symbols in the place of punctuation. Much was lost in recovering this file from a format now seldom see outside of the Microsoft Museum.)

A MATTER OF DEGREES 

(a novel in progress)

Dale Butts lay back on his bed. For a moment he stared at the concrete ceiling, thinking. It was the only blank space in sight. 

On the wall opposite his bed a former occupant had painted a huge mural in stupefying colors. Dale had never been able to figure out what the mural represented. He thought it was either suppose to be General George Washington crossing the Delaware or a jury box filled with laughing clowns. It didnÕt really matter to him. Dale had never thought much of art. It had never meant much to him. The old man who was housed across the hall from Dale had a greater interest in the painted. He insisted that by squinting a little the mural was an arousing dipiction of Eve making love to the serpent. Obviously, the artist had left much to the imagination. 

One endless afternoon as Dale he contemplated either George Washington or a box of laughing clowns, he realized the reason for art. Dale suddenly knew why art was so popular. The reason was very simple: walls. Walls were miserable things. They boxed you in. They confined you and their blank, faceless edges made the confinement worse. Walls had created art, not mankind.  People didnÕt need to make art, they just needed to uncreate walls. Even the early cavemen painted themselves silly. Why? They just wanted to be outside of those damned walls.

Walls and confinement were of particular interest to Dale, especially as his third wall consisted of a row of steel bars. Although his housing was certainly colorful it was, after all, a rather small prison cell. 

On the wall behind his bed Dale had taped photographs clipped from various magazines. Their purpose was to cover another mural which Dale did not like. This one was simple to figure out. It was a drawing of a Òhanged manÓ Ñ an enlarged version of the childrenÕs word game. A stick-figure of a hung man dangled from a snaky, black gallows. Written beneath the scene was the filled-in solution to the deadly puzzle.

   I   D  I  D   A   B  A  D   T  H  I  N  G    J  E  S  U  S

Dale stood up and looked into the mirror which hung on hid back wall. He staightened his shoulders perpendicular to his lanky body. If you werenÕt careful you could pick up a slouch from too much bunk time. He brushed back a lock of his sandy, light brown hair which was just starting to get to a good length and it meant the bulls would soon want to cut it. Dale leaned closer and examined the faint yellow specks in his otherwise clear grey pupils. His eyes had always been healthily bright. Dale neither smoke nor drank. He could make this eyes twinkle on command. Dale smiled and the mirror smiled back Ñ as if it were greatly enjoying his visit. Dale laid back down on his bed and decided to do some work before dinner. He looked over at his most prized possessions.

Between the steel toilet bowl and the leg of his bed Dale Butts stacked his books. The books were paperbacks with their covers peeled off Ñ their titles bluntly repenned on curled end-papers. On the last page of each book, stamped hugely in blue ink, was: "PROPERTY: VALLEYRIFF STATE PRISON.Ó 

The bookÕs covers had been removed by the prison librarian, Dieter Lentz. Lentz had formerly maintained and operated a carousel in Salt Lake City. One summer a series of snapshots of nude children had surfaced in Dallas. What these photographs all had uniquely in common was that the children were gaily reaching for brass rings from the backs of wooden animals. They had been traced back to Salt Lake and Lentz had received an twelve year sentence for their distribution. An elephant with green eyes wearing a brightly jeweled turban had incriminated him.

Six years in Valleyriff had made Lentz a grimly devout man. Some prisoners accepted saintly repentance as an escape from their consciences. Others just choose to smoke. Lentz had come to believe little motivation was required to inspire men to acts of blasphemy, and he set about removing the hair-trigger titillations which surrounded him. He began by tearing the portraits of busty heroines from romance novels and soon progressed to any cover with a woman on it. When complaints arose as to why certain books arrived stripped and others didn't; he simply took to removing all the covers. Pressed together on the library shelves the naked pages of the dismembered books appeared to bethe worldÕs longest paperback. 

Dale leaned over his mattress and picked up one of his books. It was one of DaleÕs favorites: Charles DickensÕ Nicholas Nickelby. Dale was filled with disgust as the bookÕs back page tore off in his hand. The denuded books often quickly fell apart. It was virtually impossible to read a mystery novel. Final page solutions were always missing. A large number of endings went like this: 

ÒDr. Morneau pulled back the bloodied shroud which covered the body on the examination table. Owen Flint stepped forward to inspect the body and Mrs. Lamont leaned in to him exclaiming, ÒYou were right, Inspector, itÕs not Harris. ItÕs. . . 

PROPERTY: VALLEYRIFF STATE PRISON. 

` There were many frustrated readers in Valleyriff. 

The ravaged books especially annoyed Dale Butts; he respected stories. Dale had always been a good reader and writing seemed to him a form of redemption. Dale had written his first story when he was only seven years old. It was called, "Rudolph flys to Salt Lake." 

In the story: a tired Rudolph mistakenly leads the sleigh team to Utah. As Santa Claus searches for his workshop in a blinding snowstorm, two little boys stumble upon the sleigh. They take it for a flight around the world, dropping toys to all the children who have been bad during the year. When the boys return from their trip, they toss the reins back to a puzzled Saint Nick shouting, "Merry Christmas, Pops!" and run off, laughing, into the snow.

It was not quite dancing sugarplums.

 

Dale's fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Oswald, a silver-haired matron of sixty, perhaps a bit overwhelmed with holiday spirit, had sent the story to the Salt Lake City Examiner. The newspaper, hungry for seasonal material, had printed it. For two grades thereafter, Dale's teachers called him "The Little Writer", eagerly foisting their favorite books upon him. Only the physical education teacher, Mr. Horst, seemed to notice the illicit undercurrent which ran through the tale of heisted sled, and he eyed ÒThe Little WriterÓ  suspiciously until Dale finally graduated to Chapman Junior High School. 

The story was the sole recognition Dale had received as a child. He read and wrote passionately for several years, until the less-asthetic pleasures of adolescence began to command his atttention.

In prison, Dale had become an avid reader again. He sat intently on the edge of his bed with the paperback of Nicholas Nickleby, and copied a sentence onto a prescription pad stolen from the infirmary. Dale had been compiling quotes for the past two years. He was certain the best so far had come from Philosophies of Twentieth Century Thought. The words in the book had the distinguished tone he was looking for. He had also borrowed freely from Madame Bovary, The Best American Essays, Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, and Do's and Don't, an etiquette book penned by Mrs. Margaret Bunscross. A great many ideas had also been lifted from a book of poetry entitled: The Killer Kisses with One Hand Slowly, by Edward Warkoski. This book apparently had slipped by Deiter Lentz's stringent eye. On its cover there was a photograph of the author, bleary eyed with a three day's growth of beard beard, groping a half-naked Tai prostitute. Due to the semi-pornographic nature of the poetry, Dale had to tape the book behind his toilet. The cover alone would have made it popular among the inmates. 

The material Dale was collecting was for an essay.  Dale had begun the essay a year and a half ago. So far he  had written one page. The page, however cannibalized, was a beauty. Its four paragraphs positively soared. They alternated between exalted speculation, and truths, so simply and profoundly stated, that even the most erudite professor would have to polish the moisture from his glasses.  Dale had written the essay for admission to Welton University. The Welton University, of Welton, Massachusetts, founded: 1735. The most prestigious academic institution in the world.

In six months Dale would be out on parole. He had decided Welton was the place he wanted to re-enter society.

    

Dale leaned against the wall of his cell and his back pressed on a photograph of a small, dark-skinned manÑwith a wild headÑriding a bicycle. The man had an imbecilic grin on his face. Dale had clipped the picture from People magazine. It was the famous photograph of Apurva Majmundar, the renown astro-physicist. It was Majmundar who had originated the Theory of Incongruity. His ideas had revolutionized the concept of order in the universe. Instead of a delicately balanced harmony between time and space; Majmundar had hypothesized the two were compatible as piranhas and guppies in a bowl. He theorized that time eventually would grind rudely to a halt. At that moment, the universe would resemble a block of ice with ashes embedded in it. 

Apurva Majmundar was DaleÕs only real hero. Dale idolized the scientistÕs brillance, as did much of the country. Majmundar, had become the darling of the popular press following the ferment of the publication of the Theory of Incongruity. Fortunately the public was willing to over-look his catastrophic prediction which was slated as being a half-billion years away. It did not, after all, affect any weekend plans. The public was more delighted to learn that it was MajumundarÕs advancement of particle theory which had resulted in the creation of calorie-free pork and chicken. 

MajmundarÕs genius had subsequently captured the heart of the country. He was celebrated as a national treasure, the countryÕs new Charles Lindberg, itÕs new Apollo astronaut; an intellectual explorer in a country too bankrupted to tackle any new frontiers other than the theoretical. 

Almost large-scale scientific pursuits had been halted after the disaster involving the Space Station Callisto. A massive asteroid storm had swept Callisto off-course. Two weeks later the intricate, trillion-dollar, construction, having been reduced to an beeping, amorphous blob of titanium, fell into the sun. The scientific community was now largely funded for projects involving animal husbandry. 

MajmundarÕs mind-spun advances were the last hope of keeping the United States as a player in the international scientific community. Apurva Majmundar was currently the director of The Institute for Progressive Concepts at Welton University.

Dale sat up and read aloud what he had just copied from Nicholas Nickelby. He read very slowly. "A child raised without reassurance he grew to be a suspicious manÑwary of all random acts of kindness." Dale reread the line several times, admiring it. Its beauty attracted him in the way all beautiful things didÑwith admiration and covetousness. In the fragile way it sat on the page, the statement had beckoned him to remove it. During his lifetime Dale had removed many things he admired: most notably a red Porshe from the parking lot of a dentist. That beautiful statement had cost him four years in Valleyriff. It was not his first visit to prison. By the age of thirty, half of Dale's life had been spent as a ward of the state.    

Valleyriff State Prison was a ÒLevel OneÓ, correctional institute. It's population consisted of non-violent offenders whose intelligence tested at better than average. It was designed to be a true rehabilitational facility. As in most prisons the inmates had the chance to study practical trades: plumbing, heating, auto mechanics, and appliance repair. Some critics of the program argued the prisons offered better resources than many public schools; others quarrelled that they tutored in professions already too laden with criminal intent. 

Unlike other prisons, a "level one" prison offered more  exotic fields of study. Prisoner could study everything from computer programming to earning a dubious certificate in ÒPractical Anesthesiolgy.Ó A large number of prisoners naturally choose to undertake the study of law. In general they either sought to discover a way to early release, or methods of circumventing future prosecution. The law program was considered being removed as an option of study. It seemed to generate the largest number of repeat offenders. 

Until his latest incarceration, Dale had always studied a trade. He could fix most gas-fueled engines, replace a leaky pipe, even repair a VCR. But Dale found little satisfaction in any of these trades, and his subsequent boredom always led him back to prison. 

Dale had been a chronically uninspired student when he was young. The prospect studying toward honest employment not only bored him, but seemed ludicrous. Early in life Dale had tasted the instant gratification of theft. Dale had dropped out of high school during his sophomore year; partly due to lack of interest, partly due to a growing suspicion by the vice-principal at the number of bicycles he was selling to students. Dale had never gone back.

Dale had half-heartedly begun a course in hotel management when he was assigned to Valleyriff. Instead he spent most of his time reading novels. Valleyriff's English instructor noticed that Dale frequently carried one the library's stripped books with him. He suggest that Dale take his "Introduction to Contemporary Literature" course. Something had clicked with Dale. The course rekindled his love of reading and writing and, after years of living by his wits, Dale realized the wealth of information waiting for him in books. They were stuffed with ideas. Ideas he could use. That was when he decided he wanted better than Valleyriff had to offer.  

Dale read the Dickens' quote one last time, but decided there was no way he could use it in his application. He carefully tore the sentence from the bottom of the pad, rolling the strip of paper into a tiny ball. He tossed it against the far side of his cell. A red light bulb encased in a steel mask began to flash. There was the short blast of an air horn, and the clank of bolts unlatching echoed in the hallway. Dale placed the pad and pencil between the pages of Nicholas Nickleby, and stuffed the book under his mattress. He rose, falling in with the unhurried march of blue shirted prisoners, and headed toward the dining hall.

II.

The bell in the university tower tolled eight o'clock. It was an eye-achingly bright morning and few students considered rising. The previous evening had been "The Snow and Berries Soiree," an unofficial tradition at Welton University. The event featured a nude romp across the frozen campus, followed by a long evening of drinking and drunken debate. Week-long flurries had beautified Welton's campus to a heart-rending picturesqueness. Welton was the oldest university in North America. Its hewn stone buildings radiated wealth, solemnity, and a well-entrenched history. The snow covered campus was a sublime vision, the sort forever cherished in the hearts of alumni, and forever reprinted in alumni magazines. 

A  heavy snow had fallen during the night but bare-footprints were still visible on the ground. They crisscrossed the lawn with the randomness of scattered atoms, merging into a single trail that led to the rotunda of the student center. This was where the evening's revelry had culminated. Several long woolen scarfs hung stiffly from nearby trees. 

One set of footprints bit more solidly into the snow than the others. They traveled toward the library. The fresh footprints were marked by short strides. They were separated as though the walker had measured each step to be evenly placed. At the library a series of small, barred windows were nestled close the ground. The owner of the footprints sat behind these windows. In a study cubical, reading under the harsh, white morning light, was Sondra Hollis.

Sondra Hollis was a tall girl, quite nearly six feet. Her strong boned features marked her eastern European roots. She was attractive in a very formal, very distinguished way. Her profile suggested carefully selective breeding. She sat taking notes from a leather bound, gold embossed copy of Philosophies of Twentieth Century Thought. She was studying a passage of Wittgenstein, when she heard footsteps shuffling in the stacks. She did not turn around even as they sidled up to her.

"Out getting your morning's worth of truth?" An inhaled, congested laugh followed the greeting.

"Oh, hello, Harold," Sondra said, turning her head only slightly.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle, I was quite certain I'd be the solitary soul here."

"You mean you didn't participate in last night's frolic?" Sondra asked in mock surprise. 

Harold Ballard pulled a linen handkerchief from his blazer and blew his nose. He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket and leaned over Sondra's chair. Sondra bent closer to her book. Harold Ballard was a naturally heavy breather. He was a first year graduate student in Welton's Romance Languages department, and he was especially handy with sanskrit. As an undergraduate he had single-handedly interpreted six hundred papyrus scrolls. His coup-de-grace had been shedding new light on previously misunderstood flax-harvesting ritual. His  efforts had worsen his already bad vision and, behind his thick glasses, his eyes moved like two jumping beans. 

"I'm afraid I didn't participate. I have an unusal proclivity to frost-bite." Harold guffawed so violently he had to remove his handkerchief again. "Did Mademoiselle partake of the Soiree?"

"No," Sondra replied. She sharply flipped a page of her book. Harold realized his Faux pas and tossed back a lock of unwashed hair with a twitching motion.  Harold glanced at Sondra's back. Just below her shoulder blades were several unnatural lumps . 

"Sorry, Sondra. I didn't mean . . ."

"That's alright," Sondra said reassuringly. "My back allows me a certain flexibility in my activities, but a naked run through the campus is not among them." 

Steel bars sewn into a nylon corset ran in perpendicular lines along her back. Her spine was supported by the bars like a weak vine tied to a stick. Over the back-brace Sondra wore a shapeless dress. The black cotton pullover was a model of simplicity. It could have understated the feminity of slithering sex-bomb. It was not an uncommon style for women to wear at Welton;  there was a tendency among the women to dress unflatteringly. The women at Welton would have no confusion as to why they were there. They were not there for decoration.

"I'm sorry, Sondra," Harold repeated. He had approached Sondra to ask her to an evening showing of La Dolce Vita. He now felt awkward, and he dropped the idea. It was the closest he had come to asking out a woman. In frustration he pinched his nostrils and cleared his throat. The sound was much like the mating bark of a otter. "Does your the back bother you often?" Harold asked. He immediately regretted the question.

"No, not really," Sondra answered, belaying no resentment. A natural pride modulated her voice. It seldom quavered from perfectly atenuated control. "I've grown somewhat accustomed to the brace. It's really more of an inconvenience than anything. I suppose one quickly gets used to most inconveniences," Sondra turned and smiled mildly at Harold. Harold's jumping beans flipped behind his glasses. "The doctor tells me that the brace can come off in another year. With any luck, that will be the last of it."

As a child, when all the probing and measurement was through, the diagnosis had been eighteen degrees. Eighteen degrees from a normal childhood. Eighteen degrees from running, swimming, jumping. It was a relatively mild case of Scoliosis, but it had been sufficient to separate Sondra Hollis from other children; as though eighteen degrees clicked off on a micrometer had translated to eighteen miles of rough water between islands.  Isolated on that island, separated from the childish acts of recklessness which a healthy body allows, Sondra had turned within for entertainment. Her mind had done her leaping and bounding for her. She was a genius, and only a freshman at Welton.

    

Sondra Hollis had had offers of free tuition from every major university. She had chosen Welton. Welton was the most difficult school in the country to gain admittance to. Its policy on admission was strictly elitist. In general, one had to be exceeding well positioned to enter Welton. Unless one's parent held a post of importance or could lay claim to aristocracy, old world or new, it was all but futile to apply to Welton University. A common etiquette problem for the university was separating by dorm the offspring of rival heads of state. 

The exception to this rule was if a student possessed a truly superior intellect. If an SAT score caused the psycho-metricians in Princeton to rework their test, even a needy student could find their way into Welton. Welton was very generous when it came to intelligence. Welton loved large amounts of grey matter as much as it did blue blood. "CEREBRUM OR PEDIGREE" might have been inscribed over its stone arches. 

Sondra Hollis had had two things in her favor. She was unusually bright, and her background was impeccable. Her Great-Great-Great-Grandfather was the respected Judge James Wendall Hollis.

Judge Hollis was an Oxford-educated barrister who had traveled to the Americas late in life. He had been the first official to preside over the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. During a preliminary hearing Judge Hollis  delivered a poignant speech on the dangers of human fear and misunderstanding. He publicly announced his belief that the accused women were suffering from mental disorder, rather than acting as servants of Satan.  At the end of his speech he had risen from his bench, and comfortingly stroked the head of one of the disturbed women. That evening Judge Hollis' cook mistakenly served him the left-overs of a oyster pie. Judge Hollis went into a deep fever, spoke distractedly about polished apples, his Grand-Nephews knees,  and Beelzebub. He died the early the next morning. There was little doubt among the community what had caused his demise. The woman whose head he had stroked was the first to the burning stake. 

Sondra's Great-Great-Grandfather had been proprietor of Newbury Nautical Ltd.  His company designed and built Clipper ships for European trade. His son, Thomas Meritt Hollis, had kept the family's interests active by reinvesting in steam engine production. Sondra's family was still doing very well. The family had a knack for keeping in step with technology. Her father, Sandford Hollis, currently  manufactured jet airplane engines in Providence, Rhode Island. Her brother Charles, was researching cold-fusion at MIT.

I am digging through an archive of writing that I compressed with a now defunct form of Stuffit (remember that, Mac users?) and finding odd stories here and there. I don't know if Steven King had penned "Stand by Me" (was that the title?) before I wrote this one. I wouldn't have bothered it if I had heard of it. Anyway, my body isn't dead, it's naked. I'm not even sure if this story even goes anywhere, but the writing seems controlled, although I seem to be channeling Hemingway in it. No idea if the story is successful or not, or if it's even finished.  I just hate throwing away good words, even if they're badly used. Read at your own risk.

     The four boys stood under the bridge looking into the current of the stream. It lay wide and smooth in the earth and wound its way up through the valley to where they now stood. It gained speed as it tumbled boulders and raced through deep slopes as it entered the foothills; before being broken by the floor of the valley— becoming tame and shallow and divided into small pools. This was where the boys planned to hunt crayfish.

   It was early Sunday morning and the hum of automobile tires had not yet begun to reverberate down from the bridge. Only the sound of water filled the cement walls as the boys stood watching the stream. They were two sets of brothers who often played together in the hills, blazing trails and battling in mock wars as indians or soldiers, but they had no thoughts of play now—for they knew this was where the Parsons boy had been found.

   There had been no heavy rains in a week and the stream was low, and they could have easily crossed it without wetting their clothing. The Parsons boy had been in the stream during the rainy season; when the rains pounded the sides of houses at night and the gutters grew thick with algae, and the stream swelled until even boulders had been moved when they returned again to play. Though they were only nine and ten years old, they always remembered they should never go in the stream during the rainy season.

The Parsons boy had been fifteen, but he must have been crazy when he went into the stream. They often wondered why he had never thought about a flash flood coming, because they thought about it when even the lightest drizzle fell on the valley. Even on clear days Ivan would look cautiously up the stream and say, "I hope there's not a flash flood." His older brother, Steven, would grumble, "No." But they would still think about it for a minute. They would think about how the flash flood could rise in an instant and wash you away. They imagined it as a great torrent several stories high, appearing from behind the bend of the old church, where it could surprise you, and carry you down here beneath the bridge. And they would often think about the Parson's boy before they again returned to their play, and how they, too, might be found dead and battered and white as toadstools.

 "That's where he was." said Steven. He was barefoot, and his foot curved around a rock as he climbed it above the stream. "Right there." He pointed with a reed to the far side the bridge. Nestled close the water was a dark, oblong hole where concrete had broken from its side. The boys stood silently for a moment considering the spot. None of them knew for certain this was where the Parsons boy had been found; they only knew that he had been found under the bridge, and this was enough to set their imaginations to work. They usually moved through the bridge without speaking of the Parsons boy, content to pass under it without invoking thoughts of him or the flash flood, but today they had planned a serious exploration of the stream. 

   "Lets go," said Billy. He was nine years old and the meekest of the boys. He was thin and tired more easily than the others, and was usually content to dally in one spot throwing stones or digging mud holes for the water to fill in. He was usually not the one to want to continue on, but he wanted to move from the bridge because it frightened him. 

   "Wait a minute," said Tommy. Tommy waded into the stream until the water flowed over his tanned ankles and he bent, flipping up a wide, flat rock. A bullfrog tadpole, it's head fat and round as a small plum, wiggled out from under the stone. Tommy cupped his hands and thrust them into the stream after the tadpole, but he missed it, and raised only a dull handful of water. He took another step and the tadpole darted out from the muddy cloud he had stirred in the water. It swam further out into the stream, slithering sideways over a pebbly shallow, then slipped down into a small eddy formed by rocks. It circled the dark green pool, then dropped to the bottom, disappearing into the shadow of the breakwater.

        Tommy looked back over his shoulder and saw his younger brother watching him anxiously. Billy had the empty look on his face he got when he was scared. Steven and Ivan also stood watching him, probably wondering if he would dare move any closer toward the spot they had just named the Parsons boy's resting place. Tommy reached down and plucked a white stone from the water. He raised it over his head and flung it loosely into the eddy, once more sighting the tadpole as it darted across the bottom of the pool. Tommy turned and shrugged his shoulders at the others.

     "O.k.," he said, "Let's go." He waded out of the stream and looked at his brother,
     "Fat tadpole," he said smiling.

     The boys straightened their canvas knapsacks on their shoulders and did not look back as they walked out from the bridge into the sun. They walked quickly on the path beside the stream for this was where its banks were sloped with loose stone, and was difficult to climb if you wanted to get out. They did not like this part of the stream because you could not see out of it, except for the sky and highest points of the mountains which seemed far away and eclipsed by the rocky banks. They kept their heads down and did not say much, occasionally kicking a stone as they walked, keeping up a swift, sturdy pace. 
     They manueverd a long turn in the stream, and they could see the greyed steeple of the old missionary church thrust into the sky. The slats of a window were broken out, and a crow sat there in the dark enclosure plucking under its wing. They  walked silently for a few more minutes and soon the bank began to drop from around them. They were able to climb boulders and peer above the embankment, and when they did, they saw that they were nearing the graveyard. They were glad to be out of the steep inclines, and they breathed easier, slowing their pace and taking extra time to leap between rocks. Billy picked up a piece of flint and tossed it onto the stream. The stone broke six expanding circles, then slowed and sank beneath the surface.  
       They walked a little further along the stream to a place where the water ran deep. The boys peered into the slow-running water where it pooled in shadow behind boulders, knowing that was where the crayfish like to hide.
  "There's one," called Billy, spotting one of the dark-red creatures before it withdrew back beneath a stone, darting in like a devil's tongue.
      "There's another!" called Ivan, spotting a crayfish as it quickly shot out a claw and grabbed a small chicken feather tumbling in an underwater eddy. There was a farmhouse not far up the stream where someone raised chickens in coops. The boys had never liked that part of the stream. The rusted coops had been built partially over the stream so the chicken dropping would fall into the water and the stream there had a acrid stench.. Collapsed feathers stuck in slick patches to the surface of rocks, white and sheenless. They boys usually turned around before they reached the place because their stream seem unclean, spoiled and dank
      "Let's go up the bank," called Tommy.

      The boys turned from the stream and climbed its sides. The bank was low and grassy now, and they easily mounted it in a few strides.

         The graveyard had been established long ago and it spread far into the distance, curving upward and rolling out of sight beyond the crest of a hill. The tombstones set nearest to the stream were the oldest stones, and they faintly revealed the names of those laid there. Time had reduced their carvings to frail scrawls, as though the ill had themselves worked the stones. Before the first set rose buck-tooth from the ground, there was a flat of land where trees stood in uneven columns. The boys often stopped here beneath the trees. The grass that grew under them was not as neatly clipped as the grass of the graveyard, but was long and smooth and preserved a deep green by the shade of the trees. It was the perfect grass to lay in on a hot day, absorbing its coolness through your skin, and it had long stems to pull from the ground and chew upon as you lay there. The boys liked it here and it had become one of their favorite, secret spots. They would often lie here for hours naming cloud configurations, or telling stories of their friends and neighbors, feeling the breezes from the mountain roll over them and watching it send ripples through the long grasses on the other side of the stream. Sometimes they would climb into the trees, looking out on the valley below from their branches, trying to name the places that they knew in the distance.

     Steven pulled his knapsack from his back and dropped it to the thick grass. He leaned back and propped himself against a birch tree. He pulled a papery strip of bark from the tree and bit into it, wedging between his teeth. He whistled against it. Tommy walked beside him and jumped at a low branch, catching it in his hands. He hung from the branch and bounced it with his weight, the leaves brushing against each other with a pleasant rushing sound.

    "Do you want to eat now?" asked Tommy, hanging from the branch, His toes raking the ground.

     "I don't know. It's early," said Steven. "Do you want to eat?"

     "I'm hungry," said Ivan, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He was nearsighted and wore glasses which were beveled thickly in toward his eyes. His father was Philipino, and he had rich, dark skin, as did his brother. But Ivan had inherited his mother's fine brown locks and they constantly blew down over his eyes. The older boys pretended not to hear him.

     "I guess we could eat," said Steven.

     "If you want to, I will," said Tommy dropping from the branch. It snapped upward, tumbling broken twigs to the grass.

     "Sure," said Steven. 
     Billy and Ivan smiled at each other and sat down in the shade of a guava tree. The tree was the oldest there and was badly palsied by the years, yet still had enough life to bear fruit each season. It was the boy's favorite tree on the flat because the fruit was sweet and delicious and they often ate from it during the summer. Tommy looked to where the pink globes hung and he took a quick inventory of the lower branches

     "Why don't we pick some guavas?"

     Steven looked up from the ground. He had already unwrapped a tunafish sandwich and did not seem anxious to leave his meal.

 "Alright," said Steven.

     Steven was the tallest and had the longest arms, so he always did the picking. Steven pawed for a branch to grip and climbed into the tree. Tommy grabbed Steven's ankles to steady him. Steven dropped a uava and Ivan swung his knapsack around to catch it, but he missed.

⁄     "Use your hands," Tommy grunted, laboring to keep Steven aloft.

     "O.k.!" said Ivan.

     Steven knocked two more guavas from the tree. One burst with a bright splash of seed upon the ground, but Billy caught the other fruit denting it only slightly with his hands. He gingerly placed the guava on the grass, and looked up at Steven.

   "Drop more," he called.

     There was a short, silent pause from the cover of the tree, then Steven began to scream.
       "Let me down! Let me down!" 
         Steven gyrated wildly on the branch and the old tree shook as Steven beat madly at his arms.
   "What's wrong!" shouted Tommy, strugging to hold Steven's ankles. Suddenly, Steven pitched himself backward, dragging Tommy hard to the ground with him.  Steven rolled away, slapping at his arms and chest.

     "Ants!" he screamed.

     Hearing this, Tommy jack-knifed upright and began to rake jaggedly at his hair. The younger boys stood transfixed. 
      "Are you o.k.? Billy asked nervously.

     Steven jumped up from the ground. He ground his foot angrily into the grass, mashing the ball of his foot upon his attackers.

     "Stupid ants!" He slapped the top of his shoulder and looked down into his palms. Several red bumps had already begun to rise between the fleshy parts of his fingers. "Stupid ants," he repeated, but his lips weakened as he said it.

     "You o.k.?" asked Tommy getting up. "Did they get you?"

     "A couple times. "Lets go eat," he said. 

         They walked from under the tree and sat down, leaving the guavas lying in the grass.

            "I hate ants,' said Steven.
         "Yeah," said Tommy.
           "You guys looked like crazy men," said Ivan.  
          The older boys eyed at him for a second, then they all laughed together.
          "I was going crazy," said Steven.

             "Steven, you looked like Boo when fell from the tree-house," Billy laughed, paddling his arms and legs in the air in mock imitation.
              No one laughed at this and Billy quickly realized he had raised a bad subject.  He nervously tapped the toes of his sneakers together. 
            Boo was a cat that belonged to Steven and Ivan. The cat had not actually fallen from the tree house. The boys had wanted to see if it was true that cats always landed feet down, and they had dropped him upside-down from the tree-house. The cat had landed upright in the grass, but  slinked cautiously around the boys ever since. 

        Steven glanced at Ivan, who sat sullenly pulling at the grass.

"Boo's gone," said Ivan.

"He musta run away," Steven said, looking his brother.

"No he didn't."

"What happened to Boo?" asked Tommy.

"We don't know," said Steven.

"Mrs. Weber got him."

 "No," said Billy.

  "You don't know that."

  "Yes, I do," said Ivan, "She got him. She had him locked in her shed once, and called the pound to take him. Good thing he had tags, or he would have been gone."

 "I remember that," said Billy.

  "We think she poisoned Tracy's dog," said Tommy. "I was there with Tracy when Whitey came home. Whitey's mouth was foaming. Pretty soon he fell over and started shaking and he died before Mr. Alvey got home." Ivan glasses began to fog and Tommy regretted saying this. "Maybe Boo-Boo will come back," he offered slowly, "He runs away alot, doesn't he?"

"Not for this long."

"Our father said he'd `kill that crazy bitch', said Steven.

  "`Crazy bitch,' " the boys all repeated the words.

"He said she's 'insane.'"

 There was something disturbing about the word, something uneasy. It loosed in the boys horror-show images. They had seen of Mrs. Weber only once in their lives, spotting her through the thick rhododendron bushes which hedged her yard, but they were unable to decipher her as  "insane," They had only caught a half glance of her: a thin, unkept figure in a shapeless velvet dress, her face twisted by a scowl. She had never approached them, but they still avoided the boundaries of her home. 
   When they had finished their lunches, Tommy walked back to gather the guavas from the ground. He opened his knapsack and withdrew a coffee can he had brought to catch crayfish. He carefully placed two of the less-beaten guavas into  and walked back to the others who had gotten themselves ready to go.

 "I'm tired" said Billy. He was breathing heavily as he saddled his backpack.

     "We haven't gotten anywhere, yet," said Ivan.

     "I know."

     "We're going right up to the mountain," said Tommy, "Don't get tired. The chicken place isn't far from here," he said pointing to where a thicken of bamboo leaned over the stream, "After that we're not far from the woods."

     "Do we have to go past the chicken cages?" asked Ivan, polishing his glasses on his shirt

     Steven and Tommy looked at each other. They did not know another way up the stream.

     "Yeah," said Steven, "So what. Otherwise, we'll have to get back onto the road. This is the best way." He looked at Tommy. Tommy nodded at him.

 "All we have to do is get over the falls," said Tommy.

     "O.k.," said Ivan, "I'm still hungry, though."

     Tommy looked up to where the stream took a turn beyond the bamboo thicket. High on the bank, opposite the cages, stood a mango tree. Loose piles of mangoes lie beneath it.

     "Let's go up and get some of those," he said.

     "I'll wait here," said Billy.

 "Come on, Billy," said Steven. He stood up and jumped into the stream bed. "We'll get some mangoes to throw at the chicken cages." He laughed at the idea.

     Billy brightened, "O.K.," he said.
    The boys climbed slowly down the bank, Billy slipped once and fell, streaking the seat of his pants with brown mud. He felt a stab of shame as his brother looked at him disapprovingly. 

  Steven and Tommy walked ahead of the younger boys and crossed the stream to where the mango tree stretched over sky. A few fruit had fallen to the ground and Steven picked them up and dropped them into his knapsack. He began to toss fresh mangoes to the others. The mangoes were ripe and darkly spotted, and had a heavy, sweet smell. Tommy gathered a half dozen of the fruit in his arms. "We've got plenty now," he said.

     The boys walked down stream a few paces and climbed a mossy log which had fallen across the stream. They sat down on it and dangled their feet above the water. They began to tear the thick skin from the mangoes and syrupy juice ran onto their fingers as they bit into the soft pulp.

     "Um, good," said Ivan, his mouth slick with fruit.

     "Look at those crayfish."

     Steven raised a finger and pointed to where green stalks of water reeds intertwined with the bamboo. The shallow there pulsed with the crimson bodies; the armoured shells of the crayfish gleamed as they broke the water.

[1]Ω     "Look at all of them," said Ivan.

     Steven got on his knees and peered into the dense reeds. "What's that?" he said. He stood on the tree and squinted where the crayfish writhed. "What's that white thing?" Steven threw his mango at the reeds; it splashed behind the object, rocking it. The crayfish scattered into the dark water. Steven jumped from the tree and grabbed a mango from the bank. He heaved it at the spot. The mango hit the submerged object,  knocking it free of the reeds. It floated out into the current and began to drift toward them. As it neared the fallen tree, they saw the yellow points of a claw roll over in the water. The chicken bobbed upended and floated beneath their feet.

    "Oh," said Tommy, as he stared down into the empty eyes of the bird which lolled beneath the water. The three boys scrambled off the log and stood watching it as it was swept downstream.

     "The crayfish were eating it," said Billy.  

      "Let's keep going." said Steven, "I want to get past this place, just once." Tommy nodded at him. Steven slid down the stream bed and started toward the thicket of bamboo. He glanced into the reeds where the chicken had lain, but the water was empty now, only a few feather clung to the reeds. "Come on!" he called. The other boys followed him, and they crossed through the thicket. There was a steep bank so they had to keep close to the water. One the other side of the stream they could see the chicken coops raised from the ground on wooden poles. They could hear sharp clucking of the chickens, but they could not see any of the birds;  only the dull wire of the cages, dripping water, siloutted against the sun. 

 Despite the rain, the water seemed to run too slowly here, it was deep and stagnant, and it's rank surface covered the rocks. The tepid pool was fed by a slowly trickling waterfall where the rows of cages ended. The boys knew they would have to climb it to continue on. Thought of ascending the small falls brought some excitement. They had never climbed it before, and they soon would be in uncharted territory.

   The bank on which they walked was thick with undergrowth, and they had to move slowly toward the waterfall. The boys said nothing but kept moving along the bank till they reached its end. The water in the center of the falls moved slowly over lichen covered stones, but most of the other stones looked dry and scalable.

     "I'll go first," said Tommy. He pressed his palm against the side of the ledge and stepped onto a flat rock just beneath the water. The water was warm, and the rock felt slimey beneath his feet, but it put Tommy out far enough to climb onto the base of the waterfall. "Its easy," he called back.

˙   Steven went next, and soon stood beside Tommy. 

"Where are we?" asked Steven slowly.

   "I don't know," said Tommy. A thick row of bushes stood back from the stream and the could not see beyond it to orient himself to the road.

     "Help me up," Ivan called.

     Steven grabbed his arm and helped him beside him. Billy stepped hesitantly into the falls. He shuttered as his foot slipped into it's warmth.  He thought of the chicken floating beneath their legs.

"Where are we?" asked Steven slowly.

     "I don't know," said Tommy. A thick row of bushes stood back from the stream and the could not see beyond it to orient himself to the road.

     "Help me up," they heard Ivan call.

     The two older boys each took one of Ivan's hands and pulled him onto the ledge. Then they reached down for Billy, whose eyes went wide as he was lifted to the top of the falls.

 "Wow, weird," said Billy.

     They stood on the edge of a large cove. Its banks rounded outward on both sides and formed a perfect circle. The water was shallow, smooth and black, and the air strangely silent. A tiny island sat in center of the pond and rusted iron pagoda tilted on it. A ancient banyan tree loomed one of the banks, it was partly upended and a monsterous spray of roots tore fiercely at the ground. The vines of the tree fell over the cove, shrouding it from sunlight, and obscuring its opposite end as the vines just brushed the water.

     "It's spooky here," Billy said, as he studied the pond. "Where are we?"

     "Maybe near that lawyer's house," said Tommy, shaking his head. He leaned over the black water and tried to peer through through the rodendron bushes.

    "Hey, here guys," said Steven. He unslung his knapsack and poured out the mangoes he had gathered before. "Lets bombard those stupid chickens." He picked up one of the mangoes and tossed it in a high arc. It rustled through some tree branches and crashed into the chicken wire of the coops. There was a frenzy of squawking, feathers flew into the air and down onto the stream. Steven laughed. "Come on," he said. 

   The boys turned around and stood near the top of the waterfall. They each picked up a mango and tossed it at the coops. They hit the coops, splattering into showers of pulp. The boys all cheered. Steven shook out his knapsack, but there were no more mangoes.

     "Lets throw some rocks," said Steven, caught up with excitement.

î     "We might hit a chicken," said Billy.

     "Wait," said Tommy he turned around and knelt down and lifted the coffee can from his knapsack. He opened it, tilted the can, and the guavas he had retrieved spilt out. They had split open and they oozed from can. 

   "Damn," he said. Then Tommy heard a rustling sound and a tiny movement reflected in the corner of his eye. He looked up, over the black water of the cove, and saw the woman materialize.

     Mrs. Weber edged from the cover of a dark enclave. Through the shadow of the vines she was barely dicernable, only a spectral figure in motion. She held something, but Tommy could not make out what it was. He watched as a golden object—something long and angular—pushed it's way though a line of reeds, then he saw it was a frame. A heavy, gilded picture frame with nothing in it. A pair hands of held it through the reeds, then Mrs. Weber stepped through and he could see her clearly. She smiled across the water at him. She was horribly naked. Her breasts hung down unevenly on her chest. Her arms were cadaverous, ashen skin woven with sinew. Blue veins coursed the papery flesh of her legs and stomach. She stared at Tommy, her shining eyes locking his. She raised a white foot from the ground and guided it slowly through the frame, drawing it along her calf. She pulled it deliberately along  her bare leg until it rested between her thighs. She held it there. Her mouth widened and she began to laugh violently, loudly. 

The coarse laughter spun the other boys around, and then she ceased. Only the sound of trickling water rose from the stream as it decended the rocks. Tommy stood up, the coffee can slipping from his hand. Steven saw her and he grabbed for Ivan's  arm. Ivan's hand flew up to his mouth. Billy blinked once and took a step backwards, disappearing over the falls with a short, choking cry. 

Tommy broke and threw himself on his stomach, hanging himself over the rocks.‚

"Billy!" he screamed.

     "Bill-Leeeeeee."  Ms. Webber mocked mocked plea spindled out across the water of the cove. Mrs. Weber dropped the frame to the ground."Bill-Leeeeeee."

     "Billy!" Tommy shouted. His brother lie below, motionless in the water.

     "Let's go!" Steven pulled Ivan's face into his. Ivan looked into his eyes, unseeing. "LET'S GO, IVAN!" Steven shouted; he shook his brother. 

  Ivan's eye's roamed loosely then, propelled by fear, he threw himself on his stomach and began scrambling over the falls. "Careful, Ivan!" Steven shouted, after him.  

Steven turned around and stared at Mrs. Weber, for an instant they held each other's eyes, and she smiled at him. 

  Steven raised his chin and spit at her. "Crazy bitch!" he shouted. 

Mrs. Weber's eyes darkened with rage and she shrieked something deeply foul and incomprehensible to the boy.

  Steven grabbed the back of Tommy's shirt, "Come on, Tommy!" The two boys spun themselves around half-slid, half-fell down the rocks, feeling the stones tear at their elbows and their legs. Steven's belt caught on a protruding branch and he stuck to it. He tried to free himself and he tumbled from the ledge. He felt himself drop through the air and then the hard slap,  as he hit the water. There was a heavy smothering as water filled his ears and mouth. He seemed to be weighted, to be drawn down ino the thick, heavy water. The sinking stopped, and the water began to lift him up. His head broke through the surface and coughed out the stale water. He squeezed his eyes and saw Billy near him, clinging to a rock. There were tears in Billy's eyes.

"Help me, Steven," he choked, "I can't climb out."

     "O.K., Billy. Hang on, Billy." said Steven. He swam over to him. "Are you O.K."

     "Yeah.  I think so. I can't climb out." he said.

     They heard Tommy shout.,"I'm coming, guys!"  Toomy was running along the bank, ducking beneath bushes, with Ivan behind him.Tommy knelt down on top of the rock and took Billy's arm. He pulled his brother onto the bank. "Are you O.K.?" he asked, eyeing his brother. He pulled off Billy's knapsack "Are you hurt?" He looked at his brother's leg. There was a cut on his calf, but that seemed all.

     "I couldn't climb out." said Billy. Tommy shook his head. His brother had lost one of his shoes.  He smiled at Billy.

 "Nice fall,"  he said.

     "Yeah!" A tear rolled down Billy's  cheek.

     "Hey, How about me!" called Steven. He had pulled himself part way onto the rock, wet hair plastered his eyes. "Get me out of this lousy pond!" he shouted. Tommy helped him onto the bank. They looked at each other silently, and nodded, then question passed onto their faces.  

  A beating sound had begun above them in the trees.  They turned their eyes toward the sky.There was a silent moment as the leaves undulated in the treetops, pushed by a spiring wind. Then a thrashing sound filled the air, and it began to descend through the branches. It raced down through the trees, breaking into a shiver as tumbling water struck the leaves above them.  The sky grey dark, and a warm rain started to fall on the boys. Tommy turned to Steven. Water streamed down their faces, rolling along their noses, into their opened mouths. They looked at the stream, watching its surface blur as it trapped the rain. The younger boys stared up at them, waiting.

s     "Lets get out of the stream," said Tommy.

     They climbed up the steep bank  and huddled themselves against the trunk of a pulmeria tree. The rain fell past them upon dead leave lying at their feet. It matted the leaves, turning them dull and indefinite, as fingers of steam rose from the cool earth.