Love Story: In The Web of Life (23 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tina said, "By Aristide Maillol,
right?"

I nodded yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No Rothko's, I hope."

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

****

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He's there."

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

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

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

"Please come into my office," I
said.

"Can we take a walk?" he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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